LI  B  R.ARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 
OF    ILLINOIS 

194 

H69sE 
1635 


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UNIVERSITY    OF    ILLINOIS    LIBRARY    AT    URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


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(r.W.JCd.J.  Matsef/. 


THE 


SYSTEM  OF  NATUEE; 


LAWS  OF  THE  MORAL  AND  PHYSICAL  WORLD : 


BY 


BARON  D'HOLBACH, 


AUTHOR  OF  GOOD  SENSE,  ETC. 


A  NEW  AND  IMPROVED  EDITION, 


WITH    NOTES    BY   DIDEROT, 


NOW  TRANSLATED  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME 


H.    D.    ROBINSON. 


VOL.  I. 


CFREE  ENQUIRERS'  FAMILY  LIBRARY  EDITION.) 


NEW    YORK: 
PUBLISHED  BY  G.   W.   &  A.  J.   MATSELL, 

94  CHATHAM  STREET. 

1835. 


ENTERED  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1835,  by  H.  D.  ROBINSON,  in 
the  ClerV  i  office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of  KPW  York. 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


TO    THE    PUBLIC. 


To  expose  superstition,  the  ignorance  and  credulity  on  which  it  is 
based,  and  to  ameliorate  the  condition  of  the  human  race,  is  the  ardent 
desire  of  every  philanthropic  mind. 

Mankind  are  unhappy,  in  proportion  as  they  are  deluded  by  imag- 
inary systems  of  theology.  Taught  to  attach  much  importance  to 
belief  in  religious  doctrines,  and  to  mere  forms  and  ceremonies  of  re- 
ligious worship,  the  slightest  disagreement  among  theological  dogma- 
tists is  oftentimes  sufficient  to  inflame  their  minds,  already  excited  by 
bigotry,  and  to  lead  them  to  anathematize  and  destroy  each  other  with- 
out pity,  mercy,  or  remorse. 

The  various  theological  systems  in  which  mankind  have  been  mis- 
led to  have  faith,  are  but  fables  and  falsehoods  imposed  by  visionaries 
and  fanatics  on  the  ignorant,  the  weak,  and  the  credulous,  as  historical 
truths  ;  and  for  unbelief  of  which,  millions  have  perished  at  the  stake, 
or  pined  in  gloomy  dungeons  :  and  such  will  ever  be  the  case,  until  the 
mists  of  superstition,  and  the  influence  of  priestcraft,  are  exposed  by 
the  light  of  knowledge  and  the  power  of  truth. 

Many  honest  and  talented  philanthropists  have  directed  their 
powerful  intellects  against  the  religious  dogmas  which  have  caused 
so  much  misery  and  persecution  among  mankind.  Owing,  however, 
to  the  combined  power  and  influence  of  kings  and  priests,  many  of 
those  learned  and  liberal  works  have  been  either  destroyed  or  buried 
in  oblivion,  and  the  characters  of  the  writers  assailed  by  the  unsparing 
and  relentless  rancour  of  pious  abuse. 

To  counteract  and  destroy,  if  possible,  these  sources  of  mischief 
and  misery,  is  the  intention  of  the  publishers  of  the  FREE  ENQUIRER'S 
FAMILY  LIBRARY.  It  is  proposed  to  publish  in  a  form  which  shall 
unite  the  various  advantages  of  neatness  of  typography  anct  cheapness 
of  price,  the  works  of  those  celebrated  authors  whose  writings,  owing 
to  religious  intolerance,  have  been  kept  in  obscurity. 

We  have  commenced  the  library  with  a  translation  of  BARON 
d'HoLBAcn's  SYSTEM  OF  NATURE,  because  it  is  estimated  as  one  of 


VI  ADVERTISEMENT. 

panders  of  despotism,  and  the  promoters  of  superstition.  Whenever 
he  spoke  of  these,  his  naturally  good  temper  forsook  him. 

"  Among  his  friends,  the  Baron  d'Holbach  numbered  the  celebrated 
Heivetius,  Diderot,  d'Alembert,  Naigeon,  Condillac,  Turgot,  Buffon, 
J.  J.  Rousseau,  Voltaire,  &c. ;  and  in  other  countries,  such  men  as 
Hume,  Garrick,  the  Abbate  Galiani,  &c.  If  so  distinguished  and 
learned  a  society  was  calculated  to  give  more  strength  and  expansion 
to  his  mind,  it  has  also  been  justly  remarked,  that  those  illustrious 
men  could  not  but  learn  many  curious  and  useful  things  from  him ; 
for  he  possessed  an  extensive  library,  and  the  tenacity  of  his  memory 
was  such  as  to  enable  him  to  remember  without  effort  every  thing  he 
had  once  read." 

However,  the  most  praiseworthy  feature  in  d'Holbach's  character, 
was  his  benevolence ;  and  we  now  conclude  this  sketch  with  the  fol- 
lowing pithy  anecdote  related  by  Mr.  Naigeon,  in  the  Journal  of 
Paris  : — 

"  Among  those  who  frequented  d'Holbach's  house,  was  a  literary 
gentleman,  who,  for  some  time  past,  appeared  musing  and  in  deep 
melancholy.  Pained  to  see  his  friend  in  that  state,  d'Holbach  called 
on  him.  '  I  do  not  wish,'  said  d'Holbach,  '  to  pry  into  a  secret  you 
did  not  wish  to  confide  to  me,  but  I  see  you  are  sorrowful,  and  your 
situation  makes  me  both  uneasy  and  unhappy.  I  know  you  are  not 
rich,  and  you  may  have  wants  which  you  have  hid  from  me.  I  bring 
you  ten  thousand  francs  which  are  of  no  use  to  me.  You  will  cer- 
tainly not  refuse  them  if  you  feel  any  friendship  for  me  ;  and  by-and- 
by,  when  you  find  yourself  in  better  circumstances,  you  will  return 
them.'  This  friend,  moved  to  tears  by  the  generosity  of  the  action, 
assured  him  that  he  did  not  want  money,  that  his  chagrin  had  another 
cause,  and  therefore  could  not  accept  his  offer ;  but  he  never  forgot 
the  kindness  which  prompted  it,  and  to  him  I  am  indebted  for  the  facts 
I  have  just  related." 

We  have  no  apologies  to  make  for  republishing  the  System  of 
Nature  at  this  time ;  the  work  will  support  itself,  and  needs  no  advo- 
cate ;  it  has  never  been  answered,  because,  in  truth,  it  is,  indeed,  un- 
answerable. It  demonstrates  the  fallacy  as  well  of  the  religion  of 
the  Pagan  as  the  Jew — the  Christian  as  the  Mahometan.  It  is  a 
guide  alike  to  the  philosopher  emancipated  from  religious  thraldom, 
and  the  poor  votary  misled  by  the  follies  of  superstition. 

All  Christian  writers  on  Natural  Theology  have  studiously  avoided 
even  the  mention  of  this  masterly  production  :  knowing  their  utter  in- 
ability to  cope  with  its  powerful  reasoning,  they  have  wisely  passed 
it  by  in  silence.  Henry  Lord  Brougham,  it  is  true,  in  his  recent 
Discourse  of  Natural  Theology,  has  mentioned  this  extraordinary 
treatise,  but  with  what  care  does  he  evade  entering  the  lists  with  this 
distinguished  writer !  He  passes  over  the  work  with  a  haste  and 
sophistry  that  indicates  how  fully  conscious  he  was  of  his  own  weak- 
ness and  his  opponent's  strength.  "  There  is  no  book  of  an  Atheistical 


ADVERTISEMENT.  Vll 

description,"  says  his  lordship,  "  which  has  ever  made  a  greater  im- 
pression than  the  famous  Systeme  de  la  Nature." 

*  *  *  *  * 

"  It  is  impossible  to  deny  the  merits  of  the  Systeme  de  la  Nature. 
The  work  of  a  great  writer  it  unquestionably  is  ;  but  its  merit  lies  in 
the  extraordinary  eloquence  of  the  composition,  and  the  skill  with 
which  words  are  substituted  for  ideas  ;  and  assumptions  for  proofs,  are 
made  to  pass  current,"  &c.  It  is  with  a  few  pages  of  such  empty  de- 
clamation that  his  lordship  attacks  and  condemns  this  eloquent  and 
logical  work.* 

We  do  not  wish  to  detain  the  reader  longer  from  its  perusal  by 
lengthening  out  our  preface,  and  have  only  to  remark,  in  conclusion, 
that  when  Baron  d'Holbach  finished  this  work,-  he  might  have  said 
with  more  truth,  and  far  less  vanity  than  Horace  : — 

"  Exegi  monumentum  sere  perennius, 
Regalique  situ  pyramidum  altius  ; 
Quod  non  imber  edax,  non  Aquilo  impotens 
Possit  diruere,  aut  innumerabilis 
Annorum  series,  et  fuga  temporum." — et  seq. 

Q,  Hor.  Flac.  Car.  Lib.  III.  30,  v.  1-5. 
New  York,  September,  1835. 

*  Vide  A  Discourse  of  Natural  Theology,  by  Henry  Lord  Brougham, 
F.R.S.,  &c.  Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea,  and  Blanchard.  1835.  Pages  146 
and  147. 


Terms.  —  The  Free  Enquirers'  Family  Library  will  be  stereotyped, 
and  issued  semi-monthly,  in  numbers  of  32  laige  octavo  pages  (equal  to  62 
duodecimo  pages),  with  a  handsome  frontispiece,  at  $3  per  annum,  payable 
half-yearly  in  advance,  or  12£  cents  per  number,  by  G.  W.  <fc  A.  J.  MAT- 
SELL,  No.  94,  Chatham  street,  New  York,  sole  proprietors  and  publishers; 
to  whom  all  orders  for  the  above  work  should  be  addressed  (post  paid). 

Baron  d'Holbach's  (entire)  System  of  Nature,*  with  notes  by  Diderot, 
translated  now  for  the  first  time  by  H.  D.  Robinson,  will  form  12  Numbers 
of  the  Library,  which  we  offer  to  the  public  for  the  very  low  price  of 
SI  50  per  copy.  (The  London  edition  of  the  same  work  now  sells  for 
10  and  even  $13.) 


Persons  forwarding  $5,  postage  free,  will  be  entitled  to  four  copies 
of  the  System  of  Nature  entire. 


Those  persons  who  have  heretofore  complained  of  the  high  price 
of  liberal  publications,  will  perceive,  by  referring  to  the  above  terms  of  the 
Library,  that  it  will  be  as  cheap,  if  not  cheaper,  than  most  of  the  popular 
publications  of  the  day. 


•  Attributed  to  Mirabeau. 


VI  ADVERTISEMENT. 

panders  of  despotism,  and  the  promoters  of  superstition.  Whenever 
he  spoke  of  these,  his  naturally  good  temper  forsook  him. 

"  Among  his  friends,  the  Baron  d'Holbach  numbered  the  celebrated 
Helve tius,  Diderot,  d'Alembert,  Naigeon,  Condillac,  Turgot,  Buffon, 
J.  J.  Rousseau,  Voltaire,  &c. ;  and  in  other  countries,  such  men  as 
Hume,  Garrick,  the  Abbate  Galiani,  &c.  If  so  distinguished  and 
learned  a  society  was  calculated  to  give  more  strength  and  expansion 
to  his  mind,  it  has  also  been  justly  remarked,  that  those  illustrious 
men  could  not  but  learn  many  curious  and  useful  things  from  him ; 
for  he  possessed  an  extensive  library,  and  the  tenacity  of  his  memory 
was  such  as  to  enable  him  to  remember  without  effort  every  thing  he 
had  once  read." 

However,  the  most  praiseworthy  feature  in  d'Holbach's  character, 
was  his  benevolence ;  and  we  now  conclude  this  sketch  with  the  fol- 
lowing pithy  anecdote  related  by  Mr.  Naigeon,  in  the  Journal  of 
Paris  : — 

"  Among  those  who  frequented  d'Holbach's  house,  was  a  literary 
gentleman,  who,  for  some  time  past,  appeared  musing  and  in  deep 
melancholy.  Pained  to  see  his  friend  in  that  siate,  d'Holbach  called 
on  him.  '  I  do  not  wish,'  said  d'Holbach,  '  to  pry  into  a  secret  you 
did  not  wish  to  confide  to  me,  but  I  see  you  are  sorrowful,  and  your 
situation  makes  me  both  uneasy  and  unhappy.  I  know  you  are  not 
rich,  and  you  may  have  wants  which  you  have  hid  from  me.  I  bring 
you  ten  thousand  francs  which  are  of  no  use  to  me.  You  will  cer- 
tainly not  refuse  them  if  you  feel  any  friendship  for  me  ;  and  by-and- 
by,  when  you  find  yourself  in  better  circumstances,  you  will  return 
them.'  This  friend,  moved  to  tears  by  the  generosity  of  the  action, 
assured  him  that  he  did  not  want  money,  that  his  chagrin  had  another 
cause,  and  therefore  could  not  accept  his  offer ;  but  he  never  forgot 
the  kindness  which  prompted  it,  and  to  him  I  am  indebted  for  the  facts 
I  have  just  related." 

We  have  no  apologies  to  make  for  republishing  the  System  of 
Nature  at  this  time ;  the  work  will  support  itself,  and  needs  no  advo- 
cate ;  it  has  never  been  answered,  because,  in  truth,  it  is,  indeed,  un- 
answerable. It  demonstrates  the  fallacy  as  well  of  the  religion  of 
the  Pagan  as  the  Jew — the  Christian  as  the  Mahometan.  It  is  a 
guide  alike  to  the  philosopher  emancipated  from  religious  thraldom, 
and  the  poor  votary  misled  by  the  follies  of  superstition. 

All  Christian  writers  on  Natural  Theology  have  studiously  avoided 
even  the  mention  of  this  masterly  production :  knowing  their  utter  in- 
ability to  cope  with  its  powerful  reasoning,  they  have  wisely  passed 
it  by  in  silence.  Henry  Lord  Brougham,  it  is  true,  in  his  recent 
Discourse  of  Natural  Theology,  has  mentioned  this  extraordinary 
treatise,  but  with  what  care  does  he  evade  entering  the  lists  with  this 
distinguished  writer !  He  passes  over  the  work  with  a  haste  and 
sophistry  that  indicates  how  fully  conscious  he  was  of  his  own  weak- 
ness and  his  opponent's  strength.  "  There  i?  no  book  of  an  Atheistical 


ADVERTISEMENT.  Vll 

description,"  says  his  lordship,  "  which  has  ever  made  a  greater  im- 
pression than  the  famous  Systems  de  la  Nature." 

*  *  #  *  * 

"  It  is  impossible  to  deny  the  merits  of  the  Systeme  de  la  Nature. 
The  work  of  a  great  writer  it  unquestionably  is  ;  but  its  merit  lies  in 
the  extraordinary  eloquence  of  the  composition,  and  the  skill  with 
which  words  are  substituted  for  ideas  ;  and  assumptions  for  proofs,  are 
made  to  pass  current,"  &c.  It  is  with  a  few  pages  of  such  empty  de- 
clamation that  his  lordship  attacks  and  condemns  this  eloquent  and 
logical  work.* 

We  do  not  wish  to  detain  the  reader  longer  from  its  perusal  by 
lengthening  out  our  preface,  and  have  only  to  remark,  in  conclusion, 
that  when  Baron  d'Holbach  finished  this  work,'  he  might  have  said 
with  more  truth,  and  far  less  vanity  than  Horace : — 

"  Exegi  monumentum  aere  perennius, 
Regalique  situ  pyramidum  altius  ; 
Quod  non  imber  edax,  non  Aquilo  impotens 
Possit  diruere,  aut  innumerabilis 
Annorum  series,  et  fuga  temporum." — et  seq. 

Q,  Hor.  Flac.  Car.  Lib.  III.  30,  v.  1-5. 
New  York,  September,  1835. 

*  Vide  A  Discourse  of  Natural  Theology,  by  Henry  Lord  Brougham, 
F.R.S.,  &c.  Philadelphia:  Carey,  Lea,  and  Blanchard.  1835.  Pages  146 
and  147. 

I 


Terms. — The  Free  Enquirers'  Family  Library  will  be  stereotyped, 
and  issued  semi-monthly,  in  numbers  of  32  laige  octavo  pages  (equal  to  62 
duodecimo  pages),  with  a  handsome  frontispiece,  at  $3  per  annum,  payable 
half-yearly  in  advance,  or  12£  cents  per  number,  by  G.  W.  &-.  A.  J.  MAT- 
SELL,  No.  94,  Chatham  street,  New  York,  sole  proprietors  and  publishers; 
to  whom  all  orders  for  the  above  work  should  be  addressed  (post  paid). 

Baron  d'Holbach's  (entire)  System  of  Nature,*  with  notes  by  Diderot, 
translated  now  for  the  first  time  by  H.  D.  Robinson,  will  form  12  Numbers 
of  the  Library,  which  we  offer  to  the  public  for  the  very  low  price  of 
SI  50  per  copy.  (The  London  edition  of  the  same  work  now  sells  for 
10  and  even  $13.) 

JJj3  Persons  forwarding  $5,  postage  free,  will  be  entitled  to  four  copies 
of  the  System  of  Nature  entire. 

jjj3  Those  persons  who  have  heretofore  complained  of  the  high  price 
of  liberal  publications,  will  perceive,  by  referring  to  the  above  terms  of  the 
Library,  that  it  will  be  as  cheap,  if  not  cheaper,  than  most  of  the  popular 
publications  of  the  day. 

*  Attributed  to  Mirabeau. 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE 


/THE  source  of  man's  unhappiness  is  his  ignorance  of  Nature.-  The 
pertinacity  with  which  he  clings  to  blind  opinions  imbibed  in  his  in- 
Fancy,  which  interweave  themselves  with  his  existence,  the  consequent 
prejudice  that  warps  his  mind,  that  prevents  its  expansion,  that  renders 
him  the  slave  of  fiction,  appears  to  doom  him  to  continual  errour.  He 
resembles  a  child  destitute  of  experience,  full  of  idle  notions  :  a  dan- 
gerous leaven  mixes  itself  with  all  his  knowledge  :  it  is  of  necessity 
obscure,  it  is  vacillating  and  false  : — He  takes  the  tone  of  his  ideas  on 
the  authority  of  others,  who  are  themselves  in  errour,  or  else  have  an 
interest  in  deceiving  him.  To  remove  this  Cimmerian  darkness, 
these  barriers  to  the  improvement  of  his  condition  ;  to  disentangle  him 
from  the  clouds  of  errour  that  envelop  him,  that  obscure  the  path  he 
ought  to  tread  ;  to  guide  him  out  of  this  Cretan  labyrinth,  requires  the 
clue  of  Ariadne,  with  all  the  love  she  could  bestow  on  Theseus.  It 
exacts  more  than  common  exertion ;  it  needs  a  most  determined,  a  most 
undaunted  courage — it  is  never  effected  but  by  a  persevering  resolu- 
tion to  act,  to  think  for  himself;  to  examine  with  rigour  and  imparti- 
ality the  opinions  he  has  adopted.  He  will  find  that  the  most  noxious 
weeds  have  sprung  up  beside  beautiful  flowers  ;  entwined  themselves 
around  their  stems,  overshadowed  them  with  an  exuberance  of  foliage, 
choked  the  ground,  enfeebled  their  growth,  diminished  their  petals, 
dimmed  the  brilliancy  of  their  colours  ;  that  deceived  by  the  apparent 
freshness  of  their  verdure,  by  the  rapidity  of  their  exfoliation,  he  has 
given  them  cultivation,  watered  them,  nurtured  them,  when  he  ought 
to  have  plucked  out  their  very  roots. 

^Man  seeks  to  range  out  of  his  sphere  :  notwithstanding  the  reiterated 
checks  his  ambitious  folly  experiences,  he  still  attempts  the  impossi- 
ble ;  strives  to  carry  his  researches  beyond  the  visible  world  ;  and  hunts 
out  misery  in  imaginary  regions.  He  would  be  a  metaphysician  be- 
fore he  has  become  a  practical  philosopher.  He  quits  the  contempla- 
tion of  realities  to  meditate  on  chimeras.  He  neglects  experience  to 
feed  on  conjecture,  to  indulge  in  hypothesis.  He  dares  not  cultivate 
his  reason,  because  from  his  earliest  days  he  has  been  taught  to  con- 
sider it  criminal. ;  He  pretends  to  know  his  fate  in  the  indistinct  abodes 
of  another  life,  before  he  has  considered  of  the  means  by  which  he  is 
to  render  himself  happy  in  the  world  he  inhabits  :  in  short,  man  dis- 


AUTHORS    PREFACE.  IX 

dains  the  study  of  Nature,  except  it  be  partially:  he  pursues  phantoms 
that  resemble  an  ignis-fatuus,  which  at  once  dazzle,  bewilder,  and 
affright :  like  the  benighted  traveller  led  astray  by  these  deceptive  ex- 
halations of  a  swampy  soil,  he  frequently  quits  the  plain,  the  simple 
road  of  truth,  by  pursuing  of  which,  he  can  alone  ever  reasonably  hope 
to  reach  the  goal  of  happiness. 

The  most  important  of  our  duties,  then,  is  to  seek  means  by  which 
we  may  destroy  delusions  that  can  never  do  more  than  mislead  us. 
The  remedies  for  these  evils  must  be  sought  for  in  Nature  herself ;  it 
is  only  in  the  abundance  of  her  resources,  that  we  can  rationally  ex- 
pect to  find  antidotes  to  the  mischiefs  brought  upon  us  by  an  ill-di- 
rected, by  an  overpowering  enthusiasm.  It  is  time  these  remedies 
were  sought ;  it  is  time  to  look  the  evil  boldly  in  the  face,  to  examine 
its  foundations,  to  scrutinize  its  superstructure  : (reason,  with  its  faithful 
guide  experience,  must  attack  in  their  entrenchments  those  prejudices 
to  which  the  human  race  has  but  too  long  been  the  victim.;]  For  this 
purpose  reason  must  be  restored  to  its  proper  rank, — it  must  be  rescued 
from  the  evil  company  with  which  it  is  associated.  It  has  been  too 
long  degraded — too  long  neglected — cowardice  has  rendered  it  subser- 
vient to  delirium,  the  slave  to  falsehood.  It  must  no  longer  be  held 
down  by  the  massive  chains  of  ignorant  prejudice. 

Truth  is  invariable — it  is  requisite  to  man — it  can  never  harm  him — 
his  very  necessities,  sooner  or  later,  make  him  sensible  of  this ;  oblige 
him  to  acknowledge  it.  Let  us  then  discover  it  to  mortals — let  us  ex- 
hibit its  charms — let  us  shed  its  effulgence  over  the  darkened  road  ;  it 
is  the  only  mode  by  which  man  can  become  disgusted  with  that  dis- 
graceful superstition  which  leads  him  into  errour,  and  which  but  too 
often  usurps  his  homage  by  treacherously  covering  itself  with  the  mask 
of  truth — its  lustre  can  wound  none  but  those  enemies  to  the  human 
race  whose  power  is  bottomed  solely  on  the  ignorance,  on  the  dark- 
ness in  which  they  have  in  almost  every  climate  contrived  to  involve 
the  mind  of  man. 

Truth  speaks  not  to  these  perverse  beings  : — her  voice  can  only  be 
heard  by  generous  minds  accustomed  to  reflection,  whose  sensibilities 
make  them  lament  the  numberless  calamities  showered  on  the  earth 
by  political  and  religious  tyranny — whose  enlightened  minds  contem- 
plate with  horrour  the  immensity,  the  ponderosity  of  that  series  of  mis- 
fortunes with  which  errour  has  in  all  ages  overwhelmed  mankind. 

To  errour  must  be  attributed  those  insupportable  chains  which  tyrants, 
which  priests  have  forged  for  all  nations.  To  errour  must  be  equally 
attributed  that  abject  slavery  into  which  the  people  of  almost  every 
country  have  fallen.  [Nature  designed  they  should  pursue  their  hap- 
piness by  the  most  perfect  freedom"}  To  errour  must  be  attributed 
those  religious  terrours  which,  in  almost  every  climate,  have  either  pe- 
trified man  with  fear,  or  caused  him  to  destroy  himself  for  coarse  or 
fanciful  beings.  To  errour  must  be  attributed  those  inveterate  hatreds, 
those  barbarous  persecutions,  those  numerous  massacres,  those  dread- 

2 


X  AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 

ful  tragedies,  of  which,  under  pretext  of  serving  the  interests  of  heaven, 
the  earth  has  been  but  too  frequently  made  the  theatre.  It  is  errour 
consecrated  by  religious  enthusiasm,  which  produces  that  ignorance, 
that  uncertainty  in  which  man  ever  finds  himself  with  regard  to  his 
most  evident  duties,  his  clearest  rights,  the  most  demonstrable  truths. 
In  short,  man  is  almost  every  where  a  poor  degraded  captive,  devoid 
either  of  greatness  of  soul,  of  reason,  or  of  virtue,  whom  his  inhuman 
gaolers  have  never  permitted  to  see  the  light  of  day. 

Let  us  then  endeavour  to  disperse  those  clouds  of  ignorance,  those 
mists  of  darkness  Avhich  impede  man  on  his  journey,  which  obscure 
his  progress,  which  prevent  his  marching  through  life  with  a  firm,  with 
a  steady  step.  Let  us  try  to  inspire  him  with  courage — with  respect 
for  his  reason — with  an  inextinguishable  love  for  truth — to  the 
end  that  he  may  learn  to  know  himself — to  know  his  legitimate 
rights — that  he  may  learn  to  consult  his  experience,  and  no 
longer  be  the  dupe  of  an  imagination  led  astray  by  authority — 
that  he  may  renounce  the  prejudices  of  his  childhood — that  he  may 
learn  to  found  his  morals  on  his  nature,  on  his  wants,  on  the  real 
advantage  of  society — that  he  may  dare  to  love  himself — that  he  may 
learn  to  pursue  his  true  happiness  by  promoting  that  of  others — in 
short,  that  he  may  no  longer  occupy  himself  with  reveries  either  use- 
less or  dangerous — that  he  may  become  a  virtuous,  a  rational  being, 
in  which  case  he  cannot  fail  to  become  happy. 

If  he  must  have  his  chimeras,  let  him  at  least  learn  to  permit  others 
to  form  theirs  after  their  own  fashion ;  since  nothing  can  be  more  im- 
material than  the  manner  of  men's  thinking  on  subjects  not  accessible 
to  reason,  provided  those  thoughts  be  not  suffered  to  imbody  them- 
selves into  actions  injurious  to  others  :  rabove  all,  let  him  be  fully  per- 
suaded that  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  inhabitants  of  this 
world  to  be  JUST,  KIND,  and  PEACEABLEJ 

Far  from  injuring  the  cause  of  virtue,  an  impartial  examination  of 
the  principles  of  this  work  will  show  that  its  object  is  to  restore  truth 
to  its  proper  temple,  to  build  up  an  altar  whose  foundations  shall  be 
consolidated  by  morality,  reason,  and  justice :  from  this  sacred  fane, 
virtue  guarded  by  truth,  clothed  with  experience,  shall  shed  forth  her 
radiance  on  delighted  mortals  ;  whose  homage  flowing  consecutively 
shall  open  to  the  world  a  new  era,  by  rendering  general  the  belief  that 
happiness,  the  true  end  of  man's  existence,  can  never  be  attained  but 

BY  PROMOTING  THAT  OF  HIS  FELLOW  CREATURE. 

In  conclusion  : — Warned  by  old  age  and  weak  limbs  that  death  is 
fast  approaching,  the  author  protests  most  solemnly  that,  in  his  labours, 
his  sole  object  has  been  to  promote  the  happiness  of  his  fellow  crea- 
tures ;  and  his  only  ambition,  to  merit  the  approbation  of  the  few 
partizans  of  Truth  who  honestly  and  sincerely  seek  her.  He  writes 
not  for  those  who  are  deaf  to  the  voice  of  reason,  who  judge  of  things 
only  by  their  vile  interest  or  fatal  prejudices  :  his  cold  remains  will 
fear  neither  their  clamours  nor  their  resentments,  so  terrible  to  those 
who,  whilst  living,  dare  proclaim  the  TRUTH. 


THE   SYSTEM   OF   NATURE. 


OF  NATURE  AND  HER  LAWS-OP  MAN-OF  THE  SOUL  AND  ITS  FACULTIES-OF  THE 
DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY— ON  HAPPINESS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Qf  Nature. 

MEN  will  always  deceive  themselves 
by  abandoning  experience  to  follow 
imaginary  systems.  Man  is  the  work 
of  Nature :  he  exists  in  Nature :  he  is 
submitted  to  her  laws :  he  cannot  de- 
liver himself  from  them;  nor  can  he 
step  beyond  them  even  in  thought.  It 
is  in  vain  his  mind  would  spring  for- 
ward beyond  the  visible  world,  an  im- 
perious necessity  always  compels  his 
return.  '  For  a  being  formed  by  Nature, 
and  circumscribed  by  her  laws,  there  ex- 
ists nothing  beyond  the  great  whole  of 
which  he  forms  a  part,  of  which  he  ex- 
periences the  influence.  \  The  beings 
which  he  pictures  to  himself  as  above 
nature,  or  distinguished  from  her,  are 
always  chimeras  formed  after  that 
which  he  has  already  seen,  but  of  which 
it  is  impossible  he  should  ever  form 
any  correct  idea,  either  as  to  the  place 
they  occupy,  or  of  their  manner  of 
acting.  There  is  not,  there  can  be 
nothing  out  of  that  Nature  which  in- 
cludes all  beings. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  seeking  out  of 
the  world  he  inhabits  for  beings  Avho 
flan  procure  him  a  happiness  denied  to 
him  bv  Nature,  let  man  study  this  Na- 
ture, let  him  learn  her  laws,  contem- 
plate her  energies,  observe  the  immuta- 
ble rules  by  which  she  acts  : — let  him 
apply  these  discoveries  to  his  own  feli- 
cixy  and  submit  in  silence  to  her  man- 
dates, which  nothing  can  alter: — let 
him  cheerfully  consent  to  ignore  causes 
hid  from  him  by  an  impenetrable  veil : — 
let  him  without  murreuring  yield  to 
the  decrees  of  a  universal  necessity, 
which  can  never  be  brought  within  his 
comprehension,  nor  ever  emancipate 
him  from  those  laws  imposed  on  him 
by  his  essence. 


The  distinction  which  has  been  so 
often  made  between  the  physical  and  . 
the  moral  man  is  evidently  an  abuse 
of  terms,  f  Man  is  a  being  purely  phy- 
sical :  the  moral  man  is  nothing  more 
than  this  physical  being  considered 
under  a  certain  point  of  view,  that  is 
to  say,  with  relation  to  some  of  his 
modes  of  action,  arising  out  of  his  par- 
ticular organization^  But  is  not  this 
organization  itself  the  work  of  Nature  ? 
The  motion  or  impulse  to  action  of 
which  he  is  susceptible,  is  that  notphy_^ 
sical  1  His  visible  actions,  as  well  as 
the  invisible  motion  interiorly  excited 
by  his  will  or  his  thoughts,  are  equally 
the  natural  effects,  the  necessary  con- 
sequences, of  his  peculiar  mechanism, 
and  the  impulse  he  receives  from  those 
beings  by  whom  he  is  surrounded.  All 
that  the  human  mind  has  successively 
invented  with  a  view  to  change  or 
perfect  his  being,  and  to  render  him- 
self more  happy,  was  only  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  man's  peculiar 
essence,  and  that  of  the  beings  who  act 
upon  him.  The  object  of  all  his  in- 
stitutions, of  all  his  reflections,  of  all 
his  knowledge,  is  only  to  procure  that 
happiness  towards  \vhich  he  is  inces- 
santly impelled  by  the  peculiarity  of  his 
nature.  i  All  that  he  does,  all  that  he 
thinks,  all  that  he  is,  all  that  he  Avill  be, 
is  nothing  more  than  what  Universal 
Nature  has  made  him.  His  ideas,  his 
will,  his  actions,  are  the  necessary  ef- 
fects of  those  qualities  infused  into 
him  by  Nature,  and  of  those  circum- 
stances in  which  she  has  placed  him.( 
In  short,  art  is  nothing  but  Nature  act- 
ing with  the  tools  she  has  made. 

Nature  sends  man  naked  and  desti- 
tute into  this  world  which  is  to  be  his  ,  <*• 
abode :  he  quickly  learns  to  cover  his 
nakedness,  to  shelter  himself  from  the 
inclemency  of  the  weather,  first  with 


12 


OF   NATURE. 


rude  huts  and  the  skins  of  the  beasts  of 
the  forest ;  by  degrees  he  mends  their 
appearance,  renders  them  more  con- 
venient :  he  establishes  manufactories 
of  cloth,  of  cotton,  of  silk  ;  he  digs  clay, 
gold,  and  other  fossils  from  the  bowels 
of  the  earth,  converts  them  into  bricks 
for  his  house,  into  vessels  for  his  use, 
gradually  improves  their  shape,  aug- 
ments their  beauty.  To  a  being  ele- 
vated above  our  terrestrial  globe,  who 
should  contemplate  the  human  species 
through  all  the  changes  he  undergoes 
in  his  progress  towards  civilization, 
man  would  not  appear  less  subjected 
to  the  laws  of  Nature  when  naked  in 
the  forest  painfully  seeking  his  susten- 
ance, than  when  living  in  civilized  so- 
ciety surrounded  with  comforts ;  that  is 
to  say,  enriched  with  greater  experi- 
ence, plunged  in  luxury,  where  he 
every  day  invents  a  thousand  new  wants 
and  discovers  a  thousand  new  modes 
of  satisfying  them.  All  the  steps  taken 
by  man  to  regulate  his  existence,  ought 
only  to  be  considered  as  a  long  succes- 
sion of  causes  and  effects,  which  are 
nothing  more  than  the  development  of 
the  first  impulse  given  him  by  nature. 

The  same  animal  by  virtue  of  his 
organization  passes  successively  from 
the  most  simple  to  the  most  complica- 
ted wants ;  it  is  nevertheless  the  con- 
sequence of  his  nature.  The  butterfly 
whose  beauty  we  admire,  whose  colours 
are  so  rich,  whose  appearance  is  so 
brilliant,  commences  as  an  inanimate 
unattractive  egg;  from  this,  heat  pro- 
duces a  worm,  this  becomes  a  chrysalis, 
then  changes  into  that  winged  insect 
decorated  with  the  most  vivid  tints :  ar- 
rived at  this  stage  he  reproduces,  he 
propagates  :  at  last  despoiled  of  his  or- 
naments he  is  obliged  to  disappear, 
having  fulfilled  the  task  imposed  on 
him  by  Nature,  having  described  the 
circle  of  mutation  marked  out  for  beings 
of  his  order. 

The  same  progress,  the  same  change 
takes  place  m  vegetables.  It  is  by 
a  succession  of  combinations  originally 
interwoven  with  the  energies  of  the 
aloe,  that  this  plant  is  insensibly  regu- 
lated, gradually  expanded,  and  at  the 
end  of  a  great  number  of  years  pro- 
duces those  flowers  which  announce 
its  dissolution. 

It  is  equally  so  with  man,  who  in  all 
his  motion,  all  the  changes  he  un- 


dergoes, never  acts  but  according  t<? 
laws  peculiar  to  his  organization,  and 
to  the  matter  of  which  he  is  composed. 
•^The  physical  man,  is  he  who  acts 
by  causes  our  senses  make  us  under- 
stand. 

The  moral  man,  is  he  who  acts  by 
physical  causes,  with  which  our  preju- 
dices preclude  us  from  becoming  ac- 
quainted. 

The  wild  man,  is  a  child  destitute 
of  experience,  who  is  incapable  of  pur- 
suing his  happiness,  because  he  has  not 
learnt  how  to  oppose  resistance  to  the 
impulses  he  receives  from  those  beings 
by  whom  he  is  surrounded. 

The  civilized  man,  is  he  whom  ex- 
perience and  social  life  have  enabled  to 
draw  from  nature  the  means  of  his  own 
happiness ;  because  he  has  learned  to 
oppose  resistance  to  those  impulses  he 
receives  from  exterior  beings,  when  ex- 
perience has  taught  him  they  would  be 
injurious  to  his  welfare. 

The  enlightened  man,  is  man  in  his 
maturity,  in  his  perfection  ;  who  is  ca- 
pable of  pursuing  his  own  happiness  j 
because  he  has  learned  to  examine,  to 
think  for  himself,  and  not  to  take  that 
for  truth  upon  the  authority  of  others, 
which  experience  has  taught  him  ex- 
amination will  frequently  prove  errone- 
ous. 

The  happy  man,  is  he  who  knows 
how  to  enjoy  the  benefits  of  nature :  in 
other  words,  he  who  thinks  for  him- 
self; who  is  thankful  for  the  good  he 
possesses  ;  who  does  not  envy  the  wel- 
fare of  others  ;  who  does  not  sigh  after 
imaginary  benefits  always  beyond  his 
grasp. 

The  unhappy  man,  is  he  who  is  in- 
capacitated to  enjoy  the  benefits  of  na- 
ture ;  that  is,  he  who  suffers  others  to 
think  for  him  ;  who  neglects  the  abso- 
lute good  he  possesses,  in  a  fruitless 
search  after  imaginary  benefits  ;  who 
vainly  sighs  after  that  which  ever  eludes 
his  pursuit. 

!.It  necessarily  results,  that  man  in  his 
researches  ought  always  to  fall  back 
on  experience,  and  natural  philosophy  : 
These  are  what  he  should  consult  in 
his  religion — in  his  morals — in  his  le- 
gislation— in  his  political  government 
— in  the  arts — in  the  sciences — in  his 
pleasures — in  his  misfortunes.  Ex- 
perience teaches  that  Nature  acts  by 
simple^  uniform,  and  invariable  laws. 


OP  NATURE. 


13 


It  is  by  his  senses  man  is  bound  to 
this  universal  Nature;  it  is  by  his 
senses  he  must  penetrate  her  secrets ; 
it  is  from  his  senses  he  must  draw 
experience  of  her  laws.  Whenever, 
therefore,  he  either  fails  to  acquire 
experience  or  quits  its  path,  he  stum- 
bles into  an  abyss,  his  imagination 
leads  him  astray.  J 

All  the  errours  of  man  are  physical 
errours :  he  never  deceives  himself  but 
when  he  neglects  to  return  back  to  na- 
ture, to  consult  her  laws,  to  call  experi- 
ence to  his  aid.  It  is  for  want  of  experi- 
ence he  forms  such  imperfect  ideas  of 
matter,  of  its  properties,  of  its  combina- 
tions, of  its  power,  of  its  mode  of  action, 
or  of  the  energies  which  spring  from  its 
essence.  Wanting  this  experience,  the 
whole  universe  to  him  is  but  one  vast 
scene  of  illusion.  The  most  ordinary 
results  appear  to  him  the  most  astonish- 
ing phenomena  ;  he  wonders  at  every 
thing,  understands  nothing,  and  yields 
the  guidance  of  his  actions  to  those  in- 
terested in  betraying  his  interests.  He 
is  ignorant  of  Nature,  he  has  mistaken 
her  laws;  he  has  not  contemplated 
the  necessary  routine  which  she  has 
marked  out  for  every  thing  she  con- 
tains. Mistaken  the  laws  of  Nature, 
did  I  say  ?  He  has  mistaken  himself: 
the  consequence  is,  that  all  his  sys- 
tems, all  his  conjectures,  all  his  rea- 
sonings, from  which  he  has  banished 
experience,  are  nothing  more  than  a 
tissue  of  errours,  a  long  chain  of  ab- 
surdities. 

All  errour  is  prejudicial :  it  is  by  de- 
ceiving himself  that  man  is  plunged 
in  misery.  He  neglected  Nature  ;  he 
understood  not  her  laws ;  he  formed 
gods  of  the  most  preposterous  kinds  : 
these  became  the  sole  objects  of  his 
hope,  the  creatures  of  his  fear,  and  he 
trembled  under  these  visionary  deities  ; 
under  the  supposed  influence  of  im- 
aginary beings  created  by  himself; 
under  the  terrour  inspired  by  blocks  of 
stone  ;  by  logs  of  wood ;  by  flying  fish ; 
or  else  under  the  frowns  of  men, 
mortal  as  himself,  whom  his  distemper- 
ed fancy  had  elevated  above  that  Nature 
of  which  alone  he  is  capable  of  form- 
ing any  idea.  His  very  posterity 
laughs  to  scorn  his  folly,  because  ex- 
perience has  convinced  them  of  the 
absurdity  of  his  groundless  fears,  of 
his  misplaced  worship.  Thus  has 


passed  away  the  ancient  mythology, 
with  all  the  trumpery  attributes  at- 
tached to  it  by  ignorance.* 
f  Man  did  not  understand  that  Nature, 
equal  in  her  distributions,  entirely 
destitute  of  goodness  or  malice,  fol- 
lows only  necessary  and  immutable 
laws,  when  she  either  produces  beings 
or  destroys  them,  when  she  causes 
those  to  suffer,  whose  organization 
creates  sensibility ;  when  she  scatters 
among  them  good  and  evil;  when 
she  subjects  them  to  incessant  change] 
— he  did  not  perceive  it  was  in  the 
bosom  of  Nature  herself,  that  it  was 
in  her  abundance  he  ought  to  seek 
to  satisfy  his  wants ;  for  remedies 
against  his  pains;  for  the  means  of 
rendering  himself  happy  :  he  expected 
to  derive  these  benefits  from  imaginary 
beings,  whom  he  erroneously  imagin- 
ed to  be  the  authors  of  his  pleasures, 
the  cause  of  his  misfortunes.  From 
hence  it  is  clear  that  to  his  ignorance 
of  Nature,  man  owes  the  creation  of 
those  illusive  powers .  under  which  he 
has  so  long  trembled  with  fear ;  that 
superstitious  worship,  which  has  been 
the  source  of  all  his  misery. 

For  want  of  clearly  understanding 
his  own  peculiar  nature,  his  proper  ten- 
dency, his  wants,  and  his  rights,  man 
has  fallen  in  society,  from  FREEDOM 
into  SLAVERY.  He  had  forgotten  the 
design  of  his  existence,  or  else  he  be- 
lieved himself  obliged  to  smother  the 
natural  desires  of  his  heart,  and  to  sacri- 
fice his  welfare  to  the  caprice  of  chiefs, 
either  elected  by  himsell,  or  submitted 
to  without  examination.  He  was  ig- 
norant of  the  true  policy  of  association 
— of  the  true  object  of  government ;  hel 
disdained  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  Nature, 
which  loudly  proclaimed  that  the  price 
of  all  submission  is  protection  aad 

*  It  is  impossible  to  peruse  the  ancient  and 
modern  theological  works  without  feeling  dis- 
gusted at  the  contemptible  invention  of  those 
gods  ichich  have  been  made  objects  of  terrour 
or  love  to  mankind.  To  begin  with  the  in- 
habitants of  India  and  Egypt,  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  what  littleness  and  foolery  in  their 
worship — what  rascality  and  infamy  in  their 
priests!  Are  our  own  any  better?  No! 
Cicero  said,  that  two  Augurs  could  not  look 
at  each  other  without  laughing ;  but  he  little 
thought  that  a  time  would  come  when  a  set 
of  mean  icretches,i  assuming  the  title  of  jRcr- 
erend,  would  endeavour  to  persuade  their 
fellow  men  that  they  represented  the  Divinity 
on  earth  !  t  DCS  miserable*. 


;i 


OF  NATURE. 


happiness :  the  end  of  all  government 
the  benefit  of  the  governed,  not  the 
exclusive  advantage  of  the  governours^ 
He  gave  himself  up  without  reserve  to 
men  like  himself,  whom  his  prejudices^ 
induced  him  to  contemplate  as  beings 
of  a  superior  order,  as  gods  upon  earth  j 
these  profited  by  his  ignorance,  took  ad- 
vantage of  his  prejudices,  corrupted 
him,  rendered  him  vicious,  enslaved 
him,  made  him  miserable.  iThusman, 
intended  by  Nature  for  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  freedom,  to  patiently  investi- 
gate her  la\vs,  to  search  into  her  secrets, 
to  always  cling  to  his  experience,  has, 
from  a  neglect  of  her  salutary  ad- 
monitions, from  an  inexcusable  ignor- 
ance of  his  own  peculiar  essence,  fallen 
into  servitude,  and  has  been  wickedly 
governed. 

Having  mistaken  himself,  he  has 
remained  ignorant  of  the  necessary 
affinity  that  subsists  between  him  and 
the  beings  of  his  own  species  :  having 
mistaken  his  duty  to  himself,  it  follow- 
ed, as  a  consequence,  he  has  mistaken 
his  duty  to  others.  He  made  an  errone- 
ous calculation  of  what  his  felicity  re- 
quired; he  did  not  perceive,  what  he 
owed  to  himself,  the  excesses  he  ought 
to  avoid,  the  passions  he  ought  to  re- 
sist, the  impulses  he  ought  to  follow, 
in  order  to  consolidate  his  happiness, 
to  promote  his  comfort,  to  further  his 
advantage.  In  short,  he  was  ignorant 
of  his  true  interests ;  hence  his  irregu- 
larities, his  intemperance,  his  shame- 
ful voluptuousness,  with  that  long  train 
of  vices  to  which  he  has  abandoned 
himself,  at  the  expense  of  his  preser- 
vation, at  the  risk  of  his  permanent 
felicity. 

It  is,  therefore,  ignorance  of  himself, 
that  has  prevented  man  from  enlighten- 
*ng  his  morals.  The  depraved  govern- 
ments to  which  he  had  submitted,  felt 
an  interest  in  preventing  the  practice 
of  his  duties,  even  when  he  knew 
them. 

Man's  ignorance  has  endured  so 
long,  he  has  taken  such  slow,  such 
irresolute  steps  to  ameliorate  his  condi- 
tion, only  because  he  has  neglected  to 
study  Nature,  to  scrutinize  her  laws,  to 
search  out  her  resources,  to  discover 
her  properties.  His  sluggishness  finds 
its  account  in  permitting  himself  to 
be  guided  by  precedent,  rather  than 
to  follow  experience  which  demands 


activity;  tp  be  led  by  routine,  rather 
than  by  his  reason  which  exacts  reflec- 
tion. From  hence  may  be  traced  the 
aversion  man  betrays  for  every  thing 
that  swerves  from  those  rules  to  which 
he  has  been  accustomed:  hence  his 
stupid,  his  scrupulous  respect  for  anti- 
quity, for  the  most  silly,  the  most  ab- 
surd institutions  of  his  fathers :  hence 
those  fears  that  seize  him,  when  the 
most  advantageous  changes  are  propos- 
ed to  him,  or  the  most  probable  attempts 
are  made  to  better  his  condition.  He 
dreads  to  examine,  because  he  has  been 
taught  to  hold  it  a  profanation  of  some- 
thing immediately  connected  with  his 
welfare;  he  credulously  believes  the 
interested  advice,  and  spurns  at  those 
who  wish  to  show  him  the  danger  of 
the  road  he  is  travelling. 

This  is  the  reason  why  nations  linger 
on  in  the  most  scandalous  lethargy, 
groaning  under  abuses  transmitted  from 
century  to  century,  trembling  at  the 
very  idea  of  that  which  alone  can  re- 
medy their  misfortunes. 

It  is  for  want  of  energy,  for  want  of 
consulting  experience,  that  medicine, 
natural  philosophy,  agriculture,  paint- 
ing, in  short,  all  the  useful  sciences  have 
so  long  remained  under  the  shackles 
of  authority,  have  progressed  so  little  : 
those  who  profess  these  sciences,  for 
the  most  part  prefer  treading  the  beaten 
paths,  however  inadequate  to  their  end, 
rather  than  strike  out  new  ones  :  they 
prefer  the  ravings  of  their  imagination, 
their  gratuitous  conjectures,  to  that 
laborious  experience  which  alone  can 
extract  her  secrets  from  Nature. 

In  short,  man,  whether  from  sloth  of! 
from  terrour,  having  renounced  the  evi- 
dence of  his  senses,  has  been  guided  in 
all  his  actions,  in  all  his  enterprises,  by 
imagination,  by  enthusiasm,  by  habit, 
by  prejudice,  and  above  all,  by  autho- 
rity, which  knew  well  how  to  deceive  j 
him.  Thus,  imaginary  systems  have 
supplied  the  place  of  experience — of 
reflection — of  reason.  Man,  petrified 
with  his  fears,  inebriated  with  the  mar- 
vellous, or  benumbed  with  sloth,  sur- 
rendered his  experience  :  guided  by  his 
credulity,  he  was  unable  to  fall  back 
upon  it,  he  became  consequently  inex- 
perienced: from  thence  he  gave  birth 
to  the  most  ridiculous  opinions,  or  else 
adopted  without  examination,  all  those 
chimeras,  all  those  idle  notions  offer- 


OF  NATURE. 


13 


ed  to  him  by  men  whose  interest  it 
was  to  fool  him  to  the  top  of  his  bent. 

Thus,  because  man  has  forgotten  Na- 
ture, has  neglected  her  ways — because 
he  has  disdained  experience — because 
he  has  throAvn  by  his  reason — because 
he  has  been  enraptured  with  the  mar- 
vellous, with  the  supernatural — because 
he  has  unnecessarily  trembled,  man 
has  continued  so  long  in  a  state  of  in- 
fancy ;  and  these  are  the  reasons  there 
is  so  much  trouble  in  conducting  him 
from  this  state  of  childhood  to  that  of 
manhood.  He  has  had  nothing  but  the 
most  jejune  hypotheses,  of  which  he 
has  never  dared  to  examine  either  the 
principles  or  the  proofs,  because  he  has 
been  accustomed  to  hold  them*sacred, 
to  consider  them  as  the  most  perfect 
truths,  of  which  it  is  not  permitted  to 
doubt,  even  for  an  instant.  His  ig- 
norance rendered  him  credulous :  his 
curiosity  made  him  swallow  large 
draughts  of  the  marvellous :  time  con- 
firmed him  in  his  opinions,  and  he 
passed  his  conjectures  from  race  to  race 
for  realities  ;  a  tyrannical  power  main- 
tained him  in  his  notions,  because  by 
those  alone  could  society  be  enslaved. 
At  length  the  whole  science  of  man  be- 
came a  confused  mass  of  darkness, 
falsehood  and  contradictions,  with 
here  and  there  a  feeble  ray  of  truth, 
furnished  by  that  Nature  of  which  he 
can  never  entirely  divest  himself,  be- 
cause, without  his  knowledge,  his  ne- 
cessities are  continually  bringing  him 
back  to  her  resources. 

Let  us  then,  raise  ourselves  above 
these  clouds  of  prejudice,  contemplate 
the  opinions  of  men,  and  observe  their 
various  systems ;  let  us  learn  to  distrust 
a  disordered  imagination ;  let  us  take 
experience,  that  faithful  monitor,  for 
our  guide ;  let  us  consult  Nature,  ex- 
plore her  laws,  dive  into  her  stores ; 
let  us  draw  from  herself  our  ideas  of 
the  beings  she  contains;  let  us  fall 
back  on  our  senses,  which  errour,  in- 
terested errour  has  taught  us  to  suspect; 
let  us  consult  that  reason,  which,  for  the 
vilest  purposes,  has  been  so  shame- 
fully calumniated,  so  cruelly  disgraced  ; 
let  us  attentively  examine  the  visible 
world,  and  let  us  try  if  it  will  not  en- 
able us  to  form  a  tolerable  judgment  of 
the  invisible  territory  of  the  intellectual 
world :  perhaps  it  may  be  found  that 
there  has  been  no  sufficient  reason  for 


distinguishing  thorn,  and  that  it  is  not 
without  motives  that  two  empires  have 
been  separated,  which  are  equally  the 
inheritance  of  nature. 

The  universe,  that  vast  assemblage 
of  every  thing  that  exists,  presents  only 
matter  and  motion  :  the  whole  offers  to 
our  contemplation  nothing  but  an  im- 
mense, an  uninterrupted  succession  of 
causes  and  effects;  some  of  these  causes 
are  known  to  us,  because  they  strike 
immediately  on  our  senses ;  others  are 
unknown  to  us,  because  they  act  upon 
us  by  effects,  frequently  very  remote 
from  their  original  cause. 

An  immense  variety  of  matter,  com-") 
bined  under  an  infinity  of  forms,  in- 
cessantly communicates,  unceasingly 
receives  a  diversity  of  impulses.  The 
different  properties  of  this  matter,  its 
innumerable  combinations,  its  various 
methods  of  action,  which  are  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  these  combinations, 
constitute  for  man,  what  he  calls  the 
essence  of  beings :  it  is  from  these  diver- 
sified essences  that  spring  the  orders, 
the  classes,  or  the  systems,  which  these 
beings  respectively  occupy,  of  which 
the  sum  total  makes  up  that  which  is 
called  NATURE. 

Nature,  therefore,  in  its  most  extend- 
ed signification,  is  the  great  whole  that 
results  from  the  assemblage  of  matter 
under  its  various  combinations,  with 
that  diversity  of  motions  which  the  uni- 
verse offers  to  our  view.  Nature,  in  a  less 
extended  sense,  or  considered  in  each 
individual,  is  the  whole  that  results  from 
its  essence ;  that  is  to  say,  the  properties, 
the  combination,  the  impulse,  and  the 
peculiar  modes  of  action,  by  which  it  is 
discriminated  from  other  beings.  It  is 
thus_that  MAN  is,  as  a  whole,,  the  result 
of  a  certain  combination  of  matter,  en- 
dowed with  peculiar  properties,  compe- 
tent to  give,  capable  of  receiving,  certain 
impulses,  the  arrangement  of  which  is 
called  organization^of  which  the  es- 
sence is,  to  feel,  to  tlunk,  to  act,  to 
move,  after  a  manner  distinguished 
from  other  beings  with  which  he  can 
be  compared.  Man,  therefore,  ranks 
in  an  order,  in  a  system,  in  a  class  by 
himself,  which  differs  from  that  of  other 
animals,  in  whom  we  do  not  perceive 
those  properties  of  which  he  is  possess- 
ed. The  different  systems  of  beings,  or 
if  they  will,  their  particular  natures, 
depend  on  the  general  system  of  the 


16 


OF  MOTION. 


great  whole,  or  that  universal  nature, 
of  which  they  form  a  part ;  to  which 
every  thing  that  exists  is  necessarily 
submitted,  and  attached. 

Having  described  the  proper  defini- 
tion that  should  be  applied  to  the  word 
NATURE,  I  must  advise  the  reader,  once 
for  all,  that  whenever,  in  the  course  of 
this  work,  the  expression  occurs,  that 
"  Nature  produces  such  or  such  an 
effect,"  there  is  no  intention  of  per- 
sonifying that  nature,  which  is  purely 
an  abstract  being ;  it  merely  indicates, 
that  the  effect  spoken  of,  necessarily 
springs  from  the  peculiar  properties  of 
those  beings  which  compose  the  mighty 
macrocosm.  When,  therefore,  it  is  said, 
Nature  demands  that  man  should  pur- 
sue his  own  happiness,  it  is  to  prevent 
circumlocution,  to  avoid  tautology ;  it 
is  to  be  understood  that  it  is  the  pro- 
perty of  a  being  that  feels,  that  thinks, 
that  wills,  that  acts,  to  labour  to  its  own 
happiness ;  in  short,  that  is  called  natu- 
ral which  is  conformable  to  the  essence 
of  things,  or  to  the  laws  which  Nature 
prescribes  to  the  beings  she  contains, 
in  the  different  orders  they  occupy,  un- 
der the  various  circumstances  through 
which  they  are  obliged  to  pass.  Thu% 
health  is  natural  to  man  in  a  certain 
state  ;  disease  is  natural  to  him  under 
other  circumstances ;  dissolution,  or  if 
they  will,  death,  is  a  natural  state  for 
a  body,  deprived  of  some  of  those  things, 
necessary  to  maintain  the  existence  of 
the  animal,  &c.  By  ESSENCE  is  to  be 
understood,  that  which  constitutes  a 
being  such  as  it  is ;  the  whole  of  the 
properties,  or  qualities,  by  which  it  acts 
as  it  does.  Thus,  when  it  is  said,  it  is 
the  essence  of  a  stone  to  fall,  it  is  the 
same  as  saying,  that  its  descent,  is  the 
necessary  effect  of  its  gravity,  of  its 
density,  of  the  cohesion  of  its  parts, 
of  the  elements  of  which  it  is  composed. 
In  short,  the  essence  of  a  being,  is  its 
particular,  its  individual  nature. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Of  Motion,  and  its  Origin. 

MOTION  is  an  effect  by  which  a  body 
either  changes,  or  has  a  tendency  to 
change  its  position  :  that  is  to  say,  by 
which  it  successively  corresponds  with 
different  parts  of  space,  or  changes  its 


relative  distance  to  other  bodies.  It  is 
motion  alone  that  establishes  the  rela- 
tion between  our  senses  and  exterior 
or  interior  beings :  it  is  only  by  motion, 
that  these  beings  are  impressed  upon 
us — that  we  know  their  existence — 
that  we  judge  of  their  properties — that 
we  distinguish  the  one  from  the  other — 
that  we  distribute  them  into  classes. 

The  beings,  the  substances,  or  the 
various  bodies,  of  which  nature  is  the 
assemblage,  are  themselves  effects  of 

certain  combinations effects  which 

become  causes  in  their  turn.  A  cause 
is  a  being  which  puts  another  in  motion, 
or  which  produces  some  change  in  it. 
The  effect  is  the  change  produced  in 
one  body  by  the  motion  or  presence  of 
another. 

Each  being,  by  its  essence,  by  its 
peculiar  nature,  has  the  faculty  of  pro- 
ducing, is  capable  of  receiving,  has  the 
power  of  communicating  a  variety  of 
motion.  Thus  some  beings  are  proper 
to  strike  our  organs :  these  organs  are 
competent  to  receiving  the  impression, 
are  adequate  to  undergoing  changes  by 
their  presence.  Those  which  cannot 
act  on  any  of  our  organs,  either  imme- 
diately and  by  themselves,  or  mediately, 
by  the  intervention  of  other  bodies,  exist 
not  for  us ;  since  they  can  neither  move 
us,  nor  consequently  furnish  us  with 
ideas :  they  can  neither  be  known  to  us, 
nor  of  course  be  judged  of  by  us.  To 
know  an  object,  is  to  have  felt  it;  to 
feel  it,  it  is  requisite  to  have  been  moved 
by  it.  To  see,  is  to  have  been  moved  by 
something  acting  on  the  visual  organs ; 
to  hear,  is  to  have  been  struck  by  some- 
thing on  our  auditory  nerves.  In  short, 
in  whatever  mode  a  body  may  act  upon 
us,  whatever  impulse  we  may  receive 
from  it,  we  can  have  no  other  knowledge 
of  it  than  by  the  change  it  produces  in  us. 

Nature,  as  we  have  already  said,  is 
the  assemblage,  of  all  the  beings,  and 
consequently,  of  all  the  motion  ofwhich 
we  have  a  knowledge,  as  well  as  of 
many  others  of  which  we  know  nothing, 
because  they  have  not  yet  become  acces- 
sible to  our  senses.  From  the  continual 
action  and  re-action  of  these  beings, 
result  a  series  of  causes  and  effects ;  or 
a  chain  of  motion  guided  by  the  con- 
stant and  invariable  laws  peculiar  to 
each  being :  which  are  necessary  or 
inherent  to  its  particular  nature,  which 
make  it  always  act  or  move  after  a 


OP  MOTION. 


17 


determinate  manner.  The  different 
principles  of  this  motion,  are  unknown 
to  us,  because  we  are  in  many  instances, 
if  not  in  all,  ignorant  of  what  constitutes 
the  essence  of  beings.  The  elements 
of  bodies  escape  our  senses ;  we  know 
them  only  in  the  mass  :  we  are  neither 
acquainted  Avith  their  intimate  combi- 
nation, nor  the  proportion  of  these  com- 
binations ;  from  whence  must  necessa- 
rily result  their  mode  of  action,  their 
impulse,  or  their  different  effects. 

Our  senses,  bring  us  generally  ac- 
quainted with  two  sorts  of  motion  in 
the  beings  that  surround  us.  The  one 
is  the  motion  of  the  mass,  by  which  an 
entire  body,  is  transferred  from  one  place 
to  another.  Of  the  motion  of  this  genus 
we  are  perfectly  sensible. — Thus,  we 
see  a  stone  fall,  a  ball  roll,  an  arm  move 
or  change  its  position.  The  other,  is 
an  internal  or  concealed  motion,  which 
always  depends  on  the  peculiar  energies 
of  a  body :  that  is  to  say,  on  its  essence, 
or  the  combination,  the  action,  and  re- 
action of  the  minute,  of  the  insensible 
particles  of  matter,  of  which  that  body 
is  composed.  This  motion  we  do  not 
see ;  we  know  it  only  by  the  alteration, 
or  change,  which,  after  some  time,  we 
discover  in  these  bodies  or  mixtures. 
Of  this  genus  is  that  concealed  motion 
which  fermentation  produces  in  the 
particles  that  compose  flour,  which, 
however  scattered,  however  separated, 
unite,  and  form  that  mass  which  w.e 
call  bread.  Such,  also,  is  the  imper- 
ceptible motion,  by  which  we  see  a 
plant  or  animal  enlarge,  strengthen, 
undergo  changes,  and  acquire  new  qua- 
lities, without  our  eyes  being  competent 
to  follow  its  progression,  or  to  perceive 
the  causes  which  have  produced  these 
effects.  Such,  also,  is  the  internal 
motion  that  takes  place  in  man,  which 
is  called  his  intellectual  faculties,  his 
thoughts,  his  passions,  his  will.  Of 
these  we  have  no  other  mode  of  judg- 
ing than  by  their  action;  that  is,  by 
those  sensible  effects  which  eithjer  ac- 
company or  follow  them.  Thus,  when 
we  see  a  man  run  away,  we  judge  him 
to  be  interiorly  actuated  by  the  passion 
of  fear. 

Motion,  whether  visible  or  concealed, 
is  styled  acquired  when  it  is  impressed 
on  one  body  by  another ;  either  by  a 
cause  to  which  we  are  a  stranger,  or 
by  an  exterior  agent  which  our  senses 

No.  L— 3 


enable  us  to  discover.  Thus  we  call 
that  acquired  motion,  which  the  wind 
gives  to  the  sails  of  a  ship.  That 
motion,  which  is  excited  in  a  body 
containing  within  itself  the  causes  of 
those  changes  we  see  it  undergo,  is 
called  spontaneous. — Then  it  is  said, 
this  body  acts  or  moves  by  its  own 
peculiar  energies.  Of  this  kind  is  the 
motion  of  the  man  who  walks,  who 
talks,  who  thinks.  Nevertheless,  if  we 
examine  the  matter  a  little  closer,  we 
shall  be  convinced,  that,  strictly  speak- 
ing, there  is  no  such  thing  as  spon- 
taneous motion  in  any  of  the  various 
bodies  of  Nature ;  seeing  they  are  per- 
petually acting  one  upon  the  other ; 
that  all  their  changes  are  to  be  attri- 
buted to  the  causes,  either  visible  or 
concealed,  by  which  they  are  moved. 
The  will  of  man,  is  secretly  moved  or 
determined  by  some  exterior  cause  pro- 
ducing a  change  in  him :  we  believe  he 
moves  of  himself,  because  we  neither 
see  the  cause  that  determined  him,  the 
mode  in  which  it  acted,  nor  the  organ 
that  it  put  in  motion. 

That  is  called  simple  motion,  which 
is  excited  in  a  body  by  a  single  cause. 
Compound  motion,  that,  which  is  pro- 
duced by  two  or  more  different  causes ; 
whether  these  causes  are  equal  or  un- 
equal, conspiring  differently  J  acting  to- 
gether or  in  succession,  known  or  un- 
known. 

Let  the  motion  of  beings  be  of  what- 
soever nature  it  may,  it  is  always  the 
necessary  consequence  of  their  essence, 
or  of  the  properties  which  compose 
them,  and  of  those  causes  of  which 
they  experience  the  action.  Each  being 
can  only  move,  and  act,  after  a  particu- 
lar manner ;  that  is  to  say,  conformably 
to  those  laws  which  result  from  its 
peculiar  essence,  its  particular  combi- 
nation, its  individual  nature :  in  short, 
from  its  specific  energies,  and  those  of 
the  bodies  from  which  it  receives  an 
impulse.  It  is  this  that  constitutes  the 
invariable  laws  of  motion :  I  say  inva- 
riable, because  they  can  never  change 
without  producing  confusion  in  the 
essence  of  things.  It  is  thus  that  a 
heavy  body  must  necessarily  fall,  if  it 
meets  with  no  obstacle  sufficient  to 
arrest  its  descent ;  that  a  sensible  body 
must  naturally  seek  pleasure,  and  avoid 
pain;  that  fire  must  necessarily  burn, 
and  diffuse  light. 


13 


OF  MOTION. 


Each  being,  then,  has  laws  of  motion 
that  are  adapted  to  itself,  and  constantly 
acts,  or  moves  according  to  these  laws ; 
at  least  when  no  superior  cause  inter- 
rupts its  action.  Thus,  fire  ceases  to 
burn  combustible  matter,  as  soon  as 
sufficient  water  is  thrown  into  it  to 
arrest  its  progress.  Thus,  a  sensible 
being  ceases  to  seek  pleasure,  as  soon 
as  he  fears  that  pain  will  be  the  result. 

The  communication  of  motion,  or  the 
medium  of  action,  from  one  body  to 
another,  also  follows  certain  and  neces- 
sary laws :  one  being  can  only  commu- 
nicate motion  to  another  by  the  affinity, 
by  the  resemblance,  by  the  conformity, 
by  the  analogy,  or  by  the  point  of  con- 
tact which  it  has  with  that  other  being. 
Fire  can  only  propagate  when  it  finds 
matter  analogous  to  itself:  it  extin- 
guishes when  it  encounters  bodies 
which  it  cannot  embrace  ;  that  is  to 
sav,  that  do  not  bear  towards  it  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  relation  or  affinity. 

Every  thing  in  the  universe  is  in 
motion;  the  essence  of  matter  is  to  act: 
if  we  consider  its  parts  attentively,  we 
shall  discover  that  not  a  particle  enjoys 
absolute  repose.  Those  which  appear 
to  us  to  be  without  motion,  are,  in  fact, 
only  in  relative  or  apparent  rest ;  they 
experience  such  an  imperceptible  mo- 
tion, and  expose  it  so  little  on  their 
surfaces,  that  we  cannot  perceive  the 
changes  they  undergo.*  All  that  ap- 
pears to  us  to  be  at  rest,  does  not, 
however,  remain  one  instant  in  the 
same  state.  All  beings  are  continually 
breeding,  increasing,  decreasing,  or  dis- 
persing, with  more  or  less  tardiness  or 
rapidity.  The  insect  called  ephemeron, 
is  produced,  and  perishes  in  the  same 
day ;  consequently,  it  experiences  the 
great  changes  of  its  being  very  rapidly. 
Those  combinations  which  form  the 
most  solid  bodies,  and  which,  to  our 
eyes,  appear  to  enjoy  the  most  perfect 
repose,  are  nevertheless  decomposed 
and  dissolved  in  the  course  of  time. 
The  hardest  stones,  by  degrees,  give 
way  to  the  contact  of  air.  A  mass  of 

*  This  truth,  which  is  still  denied  by  many 
metaphysicians,  has  been  conclusively  estab- 
lished by  the  celebrated  Toland,  in  a  work 
which  appeared  in  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  entitled  Letters  to  Serena. 
Those  who  can  procure  this  scarce  work  will 
do  well  to  refer  to  it,  and  their  doubts  on  the 
subject,  if  they  have  any,  will  be  removed. 


iron,  which  time,  and  the  action  of  the 
atmosphere,  has  gnawed  into  rust,  must 
have  been  in  motion  from  the  moment 
of  its  formation  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth,  until  the  instant  we  behold  it  in 
this  state  of  dissolution. 

Natural  philosophers,  for  the  most 
part,  seem  not  to  have  sufficiently  re- 
flected on  what  they  call  the  nisus ; 
that  is  to  sayr  the  incessant  efforts  one 
body  is  making  on  another,  but  which, 
notwithstanding,  appear,  to  our  super- 
ficial observation,  to  enjoy  the  most 
perfect  repose.  A  stone  of  five  hun- 
dred weight  seems  at  rest  on  the  earth, 
nevertheless,  it  never  ceases  for  an 
instant  to  press  with  force  upon  the 
earth,  which  resists  or  repulses  it  in  its 
turn.  Will  the  assertion  be  ventured, 
that  the  stone  and  the  earth  do  not  act? 
Do  they  wish  to  be  undeceived?  They 
have  nothing  to  do,  but  interpose  then- 
hand  betwixt  the  earth  and  the  stone  ; 
it  will  then  be  discovered,  that,  not- 
withstanding its  seeming  repose,  the 
stone  has  power  adequate  to  brnise  it. 
Action  cannot  exist  in  bodies  without 
re-action.  A  body  that  experiences  an 
impulse,  an  attraction,  or  a  pressure  of 
any  kind,  if  it  resists,  clearly  demon- 
strates by  such  resistance,  that  it  re- 
acts ;  from  whence  it  follows,  there  is  a 
concealed  force,  called  by  philosophers 
vis  inertia,  that  displays  itself  against 
another  force ;  and  this  clearly  demon- 
strates, that  this  inert  force  is  capable 
of  both  acting  and  re-acting.  In  shortT 
it  will  be  found,  on  close  investigation, 
that  those  powers  which  are  called 
dead,  and  those  which  are  termed  live 
or  moving,  are  powers  of  the  same 
species,  which  only  display  themselves 
after  a  different  manner.f 


f  Action!  sequalis  et  contraria  est  reactio. 

V.     BILFIJ.GEB,     DE     DEO,     ANIMA     ET     MUUDO, 

§  ccxviii.  page  241.  Upon  which  the  Com- 
mentator adds, — Keactio  dicitur  actio  patientis- 
in  agens,  seu  corporis  in  qnod  agitur  actio  in 
illua  quod  in  ipsum  agit.  Nulla  autem  datur 
in  corporibus  actio  sine  reactione,  dum  enim 
corpus  ad  motum  sollicitatur,  resistit  motui, 
atque  hac  ipsa  resistentia  reagit  in  agens. 
Nisus  se  exerens  adversus  nisnm  agentis,  seu 
vis  ilia  corporis,  quatenus  resistit,  internum 
resistentiae  principium,  vocatur  vis  inertia?,  seu 
passiva.  Ergo  corpus  reagit  vi  inertiae.  Vis 
igitur  inertiae  et  vis  motrix  in  corporibus  una 
eademque  est  vis,  diverse  tamen  mqdo  se 
exerens.  Vis  autem  inertias  consistit  in  nisi 
adversus  nisum  agentis  se  exerente,  &c. 
IBIDEM. 


OP  MOTION. 


19 


May  we  not  go  farther  yet,  may  we 
Mot  say,  that  in  those  bodies,  or  masses, 
of  Avhich  the  whole  appears  to  us  to 
be  at  rest,  there  is,  notwithstanding,  a 
continual  action  and  reaction,  constant 
efforts,  uninterrupted  impulse,  and  con- 
tinued resistance?  In  short,  a  nisus, 
by  which  the  component  particles  of 
these  bodies  press  one  upon  another, 
reciprocally  resisting  each  other,  acting, 
and  reacting  incessantly  1  that  this 
reciprocity  of  action,  this  simultaneous 
reaction,  keeps  them  united,  causes 
their  particles  to  form  a  mass,  a  body, 
a  combination,  which,  viewed  in  its 
whole,  has  the  semblance  of  complete 
rest,  although  no  one  of  its  particles 
ever  really  ceases  to  be  in  motion  for 
a  single  iastant?  These  bodies  appear 
to  be  at  rest,  simply  by  the  equality  of 
the  motion  of  the  powers  acting  in 
them. 

Thus  bodies  that  have  the  appear- 
ance of  enjoying  the  most  perfect  re- 
pose, really  receive,  whether  upon  their 
surface,  or  in  their  interior,  continual 
impulsion  from  those  bodies  by  which 
they  are  either  surrounded  or  pene- 
trated, dilated  or  contracted,  rarefied  or 
condensed ;  in  short,  from  those  which 
compose  them:  whereby  their  particles 
are  constantly  acting,  and  reacting,  or 
in  continual  motion,  the  effects  of  which 
are  ulteriorly  displayed  by  very  remark- 
able changes.  Thus  heat  rarefies  and 
dilates  metals,  which  clearly  demon- 
strates, that  a  bar  of  iron,  from  the 
variation  of  the  atmosphere  alone,  must 
fee  in  unceasing  motion ;  and  that  not 
a  single  particle  in  it  can  be  said  to 
enjoy  rest,  even  for  a  single  moment. 
Indeed,  in  those  hard  bodies,  the  par- 
ticles of  which  are  contiguous,  which 
are  closely  united,  how  is  it  possible  to 
conceive,  that  air,  cold  or  heat,  can  act 
upon  one  of  these  particles,  even  ex- 
teriorly, without  the  motion  being  suc- 
cessively communicated  to  those  which 
are  most  intimate  and  minute  in  their 
union  ?  How,  without  motion,  should 
we  be  able  to  conceive  the  manner  in 
which  our  sense  of  smelling  is  affected 
by  emanations  escaping  from  the  most 
compact  bodies,  of  which  all  the  par- 
ticles appear  to  be  at  perfect  rest?  How 
could  we,  even  by  the  aid  of  a  telescope, 
see  the  most  distant  stars,  if  there  was 
not  a  progressive  motion  of  light  from 
these  stars  to  the  retina  of  our  eye  ? 


Observation  and  reflection  ought  to 
convince  us,  that  every  thing  in  Nature 
is  in  continual  motion :  that  not  one  of 
its  parts  enjoys  true  repose :  that  Nature 
acts  in  all ;  that  she  would  cease  to  be 
Nature  if  she  did  not  act ;  and  that, 
without  unceasing  motion,  nothing 
could  be  preserved,  nothing  could  be 
produced,  nothing  could  act.  Thus, 
the  idea  of  Nature  necessarily  includes 
that  of  motion.  But,  it  will  be  asked, 
from  whence  did  she  receive  her  motion  ? 
Our  reply  is,  from  herself,  since  she  is 
the  great  whole,  out  of  which,  conse- 
quently, nothing  can  exist.  We  say 
this  motion  is  a  manner  of  existence, 
that  flows,  necessarily,  out  of  the  es- 
sence of  matter ;  that  matter  moves 
by  its  own  peculiar  energies  ;  that  its 
motion  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  force 
which  is  inherent  in  itself;  that  the 
variety  of  motion,  and  the  phenomena 
which  result,  proceed  from  the  diversity 
of  the  properties,  of  the  qualities,  and  of 
the  combinations,  which  are  originally 
found  in  the  primitive  matter,  of  which 
Nature  is  the  assemblage. 

Natural  philosophers,  for  the  most 
part,  have  regarded  as  inanimate,  or  as 
deprived  of  the  faculty  of  motion,  those 
bodies  which  are  only  moved  by  the 
interposition  of  some  agent,  or  exterior 
cause ;  they  have  considered  themselves 
justified  in  concluding,  that  the  matter 
which  constitutes  these  bodies,  is  per- 
fectly inert  in  its  nature.  They  have 
not  relinquished  this  errour,  although 
they  must  have  observed,  that  when- 
ever a  body  is  left  to  itself,  or  disen- 
gaged from  those  obstacles  which  op- 
pose themselves  to  its  descent,  it  has 
a  tendency  to  fall,  or  to  approach  the 
centre  of  the  earth,  by  a  motion  uni- 
formly accelerated  ;  they  have  rather 
chosen  to  suppose  an  imaginary  exterior 
cause,  of  which  they  themselves  had 
no  correct  idea,  than  admit  that  these 
bodies  held  their  motion  from  their  own 
peculiar  nature. 

In  like  manner,  although  these  philo- 
sophers saw  above  them  an  infinite 
number  of  immense  globes,  moving 
with  great  rapidity  round  a  common 
centre,  still  they  clung  fast  to  their 
opinions ;  and  never  ceased  to  suppose 
chimerical  causes  for  these  movements, 
until  the  immortal  NEWTON  demon- 
strated that  it  was  the  effect  of  the 
gravitation  of  these  celestial  bodies 


20 


OF  MOTION. 


towards  each  other.*  A  very  simple 
observation  would  have  sufficed  to  make 
the  philosophers  anterior  to  Newton  feel 
the  insufficiency  of  the  causes  they  ad- 
mitted to  operate  with  such  powerful 
effect :  they  had  enough  to  convince 
themselves  in  the  clashing  of  one  body 
against  another  which  they  could  con- 
template, and  in  the  known  laws  of 
that  motion,  which  these  always  com- 
municate by  reason  of  their  greater  or 
less  density :  from  whence  they  ought 
to  have  inferred,  that  the  density  of 
subtile  or  ethereal  matter  being  infi- 
nitely less  than  that  of  the  planets,  it 
could  only  communicate  to  them  a  very 
feeble  motion. 

If  they  had  viewed  Nature  uninflu- 
enced by  prejudice,  they  must  have 
been  long  since  convinced,  that  matter 
acts  by  its  own  peculiar  energy,  and 
needs  not  any  exterior  impulse  to  set 
it  in  motion.  They  would  have  per- 
ceived, that  whenever  mixed  bodies 
were  placed  in  a  capacity  to  act  on 
each  other,  motion  was  instantly  en- 
gendered, and  that  these  mixtures  acted 
with  a  force  capable  of  producing  the 
most  surprising  effects.  If  filings  of 
iron,  sulphur  and  water  be  mixed  to- 
gether, these  bodies  thus  capacitated 
to  act  on  each  other,  are  heated  by 
degrees,  and  ultimately  produce  a  vio- 
lent combustion.  If  flour  be  wetted 
with  water,  and  the  mixture  closed  up, 
it  will  be  found,  after  some  little  lapse 
of  time,  by  the  aid  of  a  microscope,  to 
have  produced  organized  beings  that 
enjoy  life,  of  which  the  water  and  the 

*  Natural  philosophers,  and  Newton  him- 
self, have  considered  the  cause  of  gravitation 
to  be  inexplicable ;  vet  it  appears  that  it  may 
be  deduced  from  the  motion  of  matter  by 
which  bodies  are  diversely  determined.  Gravi- 
tation is  only  a  mode  of  moving — a  tendency 
towards  a  centre.  But,  to  speak  correctly, 
all  motion  is  relative  gravitation :  that  which 
falls  relatively  to  us,  ascends  with  relation  to 
other  bodies.  Hence  it  follows,  that  every 
motion  in  the  universe  is  the  effect  of  gravita- 
tion ;  for,  in  the  universe,  there  is  neither 
up  nor  down,  nor  positive  centre.  It  appears 
that  the  weight  of  bodies  depend  on  the  con- 
figuration, both  exterior  and  interior,  which 
gives  them  that  motion  called  gravitation. 
A  ball  of  lead  being  spherical,  falls  quickly ; 
but  this  ball  being  reduced  into  very  thin  plates, 
will  be  sustained  for  a  longer  time  in  the  air ; 
and  the  action  of  fire  will  "cause  this  lead  to 
rise  in  the  atmosphere.  Here  the  same  lead, 
variously  modified,  will  act  after  modes  entirely 
different. 


flour  Avere  believed  incapable  :f  it  19 
thus  that  inanimate  matter  can  pass 
into  life,  or  animate  matter,  which  is 
in  itself  only  an  assemblage  of  motion. 
Reasoning  from  analogy,  the  produc- 
tion of  a  man,  independent  of  the  ordi- 
nary means,  would  not  be  more  mar- 
vellous than  that  of  an  insect  with  flour 
and  water.  Fermentation  and  putre- 
faction evidently  produce  living  ani- 
mals. We  have  here  the  principle ; 
and  with  proper  materials,  principles 
can  always  be  brought  into  action. 
That  generation  which  is  styled  equivo- 
cal, is  only  so  for  those  who  do  not 
reflect,  or  who  do  not  permit  themselves 
attentively  to  observe  the  operations  of 
Nature. 

The  generation  of  motion,  and  its 
development,  as  well  as  the  energy  of 
matter,  may  be  seen  more  especially  in 
those  combinations  in  which  fire,  air, 
and  water,  find  themselves  in  union. 
These  elements,  or  rather  these  mixed 
bodies,  are  the  most  volatile,  the  most 
fugitive  of  beings ;  nevertheless,  in  the 
hands  of  Nature  they  are  the  principal 
agents  employed  to  produce  the  most 
striking  phenomena.  To  these  are  to 
be  ascribed  the  effects  of  thunder,  the 
eruption  of  volcanoes,  earthquakes.  &c. 
Art  offers  an  agent  of  astonishing  force 
in  gunpowder,  the  instant  it  comes  in 
contact  with  fire.  In  fact,  the  most 
terrible  effects  result  from  the  com- 
bination of  matter  which  is  generally 
believed  to  be  dead  and  inert. 

These  facts  incontestably  prove,  that 
motion  is  produced,  is  augmented,  is 
accelerated  in  matter,  without  the  con- 
currence of  any  exterior  agent:  it  is, 
therefore,  reasonable  to  conclude,  that 
motion  is  the  necessary  consequence 
of  immutable  laws,  resulting  from  the 
essence,  from  the  properties  inherent  in 
the  different  elements,  and  the  various 
combinations  of  these  elements.  Are 
we  not  justified,  then,  in  concluding 
from  these  examples,  that  there  may 
be  an  infinity  of  other  combinations, 
with  which  we  are  unacquainted,  com- 
petent to  produce  a  great  variety  of 
motion  in  matter,  without  being  under 
the  necessity  of  recurring  for  the  expla- 
nation to  agents  who  are  more  difficult 


t  See  the  Microscopical  Observations  of 
Mr.  Needham,  which  fully  confirm  the  above 
statement  of  the  author. 


OP  MOTION. 


21 


to  comprehend  than  even  the  effects 
which  are  attributed  to  them  ? 

If  man  had  paid  proper  attention  to 
what  passed  under  his  view,  he  would 
not  have  sought  out  of  Nature  a  power 
distinguished  from  herself,  to  set  her  in 
action,  and  without  which  he  believes 
she  cannot  move.  If,  indeed,  by  Nature 
is  meant  a  heap  of  dead  matter,  destitute 
of  properties,  purely  passive,  we  must 
unquestionably  seek  out  of  this  Nature 
the  principle  of  her  motion :  but,  if  by 
Nature,  be  understood  what  it  really  is, 
a  whole,  of  which  the  numerous  parts 
are  endowed  with  diverse,'  and  various 
properties ;  which  oblige  them  to  act 
according  to  these  properties ;  which 
are  in  a  perpetual  reciprocity  of  action 
and  reaction ;  which  press,  which  gra- 
vitate towards  a  common  centre,  whilst 
others  diverge  and  fly  off  towards  the 
periphery,  or  circumference ;  which  at- 
tract, and  repel,  which  unite,  and  sepa- 
rate ;  which  by  continual  approxima- 
tion, and  constant  collision,  produce  and 
decompose  all  the  bodies  we  behold; 
then  I  say,  there  is  no  necessity  to 
have  recourse  to  supernatural  powers 
to  account  for  the  formation  of  things, 
and  those  phenomena  which  are  the 
result  of  motion. 

Those  who  admit  a  cause  exterior  to 
matter,  are  obliged  to  suppose,  that  this 
cause  produced  all  the  motion  by  which 
matter  is  agitated  in  giving  it  existence. 
This  supposition  rests  on  another, 
namely,  that  matter  could  begin  to  ex- 
ist ;  a  hypothesis  that,  until  this  mo- 
ment, has  never  been  demonstrated  by 
any  thing  like  solid  proof.  To  pro- 
duce from  nothing,  or  the  Creation,  is 
a  term  that  cannot  give  us  the  most 
slender  idea  of  the  formation  of  the 
universe ;  it  presents  no  sense,  upon 
which  the  mind  can  fasten  itself.* 


*  In  fact,  the  human  mind  is  not  adequate 
to  conceive  a  moment  when  all  was  nothing, 
or  when  all  shall  have  passed  away;  even 
admitting  this  to  be  a  truth,  it  is  no  truth  for 
us,  because  by  the  very  nature  of  our  organ- 
ization we  cannot  admit  positions  as  facts,  of 
which  no  evidence  can  be  adduced  that  has 
relation  to  our  senses :  we  may,  indeed,  con- 
sent to  believe  it,  because  others  say  it ;  but 
will  any  rational  being  be  satisfied  with  such 
an  admission  ?  Can  any  moral  good  spring 
from  such  blind  confidence  ?  Is  it  consistent 
with  sound  doctrine,  with  philosophy,  with 
reason  ?  Do  we,  in  fact,  pay  any  respect  to 
the  understanding  of  another  when  we  say  to 
him,  1  will  believe  this,  because  in  all  the  at- 


Motion  becomes  still  more  obscure, 
when  creation,  or  the  formation  of  mat- 
ter, is  attributed  to  a  spiritual  being, 
that  is  to  say,  to  a  being  which  has  no 
analogy,  no  point  of  contact,  with  it ; 
to  a  being  which  has  neither  extent, 
nor  parts,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  sus- 
ceptible of  motion,  as  we  understand 
the  term ;  this  being  only  the  change 
of  one  body  relatively  to  another  body, 
in  which  the  body  moved,  presents  suc- 
cessively different  parts  to  different 
points  of  space.  Moreover,  as  all  the 
world  are  nearly  agreed  that  matter  can 
never  be  totally  annihilated,  or  cease 
to  exist,  how  can  we  understand,  that 
that  which  cannot  cease  to  be,  could 
ever  have  had  a  beginning  1 

If,  therefore,  it  be  asked,  whence 
came  matter  1  it  is  a  very  reasonable 
reply  to  say,  it  has  always  existed.  If 
it  be  inquired,  whence  proceeds  the 
motion  that  agitates  matter  ?  the  same 
reasoning  furnishes  the  answer ;  name- 
ly, that,  as  motion  is  coeval  with  mat- 
ter, it  must  have  existed  from  all  eter- 
nity, seeing  that  motion  is  the  ne- 
cessary consequence  of  its  existence, 
of  its  essence,  of  its  primitive  pro- 
perties, such  as  its  extent,  its  gra- 
vity, its  impenetrability,  its  figure, 
&c.  By  virtue  of  these  essential,  con- 
stituent properties,  inherent  in  all  mat- 
ter, and  without  which  it  is  impossible 
to  form  an  idea  of  it,  the  various  mat- 
ter of  which  the  universe  is  composed 
must,  from  all  eternity,  have  pressed 
against  each  other ;  have  gravitated  to- 
wards a  centre ;  have  clashed ;  have 
come  in  contact ;  have  been  attracted ; 
have  been  repelled ;  have  been  com- 
bined ;  have  been  separated ;  in  short, 
must  have  acted  and  moved  according 
to  the  essence  and  energy  peculiar  to 
each  genus,  and  to  each  of  its  combin- 

tempts  you  have  ventured  for  the  purpose  of 
proving  what  you  say,  you  have  entirely  fail- 
ed; and  have  been  at  last  obliged  to  ac- 
knowledge, you  know  nothing  about  the  mat- 
ter ?  What  moral  reliance  ought  we  to  have 
on  such  people?  Hypothesis  may  succeed 
hypothesis  ;  system  may  destroy  system ;  a 
new  set  of  ideas  may  overturn  the  ideas  of  a 
former  day.  Other  Galileos  may  be  con- 
demned to  death — other  Newtons  may  arise 
— we  may  reason;  we  may  argue;  we  may 
dispute;  we  may  quarrel;  we  may  punish; 
we  may  destroy ;  we  may  even  exterminate 
those  who  differ  from  us  in  opinion;  but  when 
we  have  done  all  this,  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
fall  back  on  our  original  darkness ;  to  confess, 


22 


OP  MOTION. 


ations.  Existence  supposes  properties 
in  the  thing  that  exists :  whenever  it 
has  properties,  its  mode  of  action  must 
necessarily  flow  from  those  properties 
which  constitute  its  mode  of  being. 
Thus,  when  a  body  is  ponderous,  it 
must  fall ;  when  it  falls,  it  must  come 
in  collision  with  the  bodies  it  meets  in 
its  descent ;  when  it  is  dense,  when  it 
is  solid,  it  must,  by  reason  of  this  den- 
sity, communicate  motion  to  the  bodies 
with  which  it  clashes  ;  when  it  has 
analogy  or  affinity  with  these  bodies,  it 
must  unite  with  them ;  when  it  has  no 
point  of  analogy  with  them,  it  must  be 
repulsed. 

From  which  it  may  be  fairly  infer- 
red, that,  in  supposing,  as  we  are  under 
the  necessity  of  doing,  the  existence 
of  matter,  we  must  suppose  it  to  have 
some  kind  of  properties,  from  which  its 
motion,  or  modes  of  action,  must  ne- 
cessarily flow.  To  form  the  universe 
Descartes  asked  but  matter  and  mo- 
tion: a  diversity  of  matter  sufficed  for 
him ;  variety  of  motion  was  the  conse- 
quence of  its  existence,  of  its  essence, 
of  its  properties  :  its  different  modes  of 
action  would  be  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  its  different  modes  of  being. 
Matter  without  properties,  would  be  a 

that  that  which  has  no  relation  with  our 
senses,  which  cannot  manifest  itself  to  us  by 
some  of  the  ordinary  modes  by  which  other 
things  are  manifested,  has  no  existence  for 
us ;  is  not  comprehensible  by  us ;  can  never 
entirely  remove  our  doubts;  can  never  seize 
on  our  steadfast  belief;  seeing  it  is  that  of 
which  we  cannot  form  even  an  idea ;  in  short, 
that  it  is  that,  which  as  long  as  we  remain 
what  we  are,  must  be  hidden  from  us  by  a 
veil  which  no  power,  no  faculty,  no  energy 
we  possess,  is  able  to  remove.  All  who  are 
not  enslaved  by  prejudice,  agree  to  the  truth 
of  the  position :  that  nothing  can  be  made  of 
nothing. 

Many  theologians  have  acknowledged  na- 
ture to  be  an  active  whole.  Almost  all  the 
ancient  philosophers  were  agreed  to  regard  the 
world  as  eternal.  OCELLUS  LUCANUS,  speak- 
ing of  the  universe,  says:  "  it  has  always  been, 
and  it  always  -will  beJ'  VAT  ABLE  and  GBO- 
TIUS  assure  us,  that,  to  render  correctly  the 
Hebrew  phrase  in  the  first  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis, we  must  say :  "  When  God  made  heaven 
and  earth,  matter  teas  without  form :"  if  this 
be  true,  and  every  Hebraist  can  judge  for  him- 
self, then  the  word  which  has  been  rendered 
created,  means  only  to  fashion,  form,  arrange. 
We  know  that  the  Greek  words  create  and 
form,  have  always  indicated  the  same  thing. 
According  to  ST.  JEHOME,  creare  has  the  same 
meaning  as  conderc,  to  found,  to  build.  The 
Bible  does  not  any  where  say  in  a  clear 


mere  nothing:  therefore,  as  soon  as 
matter  exists,  it  must  act ;  as  soon  as 
it  is  various,  it  must  act  variously  ;  if 
it  cannot  commence  to  exist,  it  must 
have  existed  from  all  eternity ;  if  it 
has  always  existed,  it  can  never  cease 
to  be  :  if  it  can  never  cease  to  be,  it  can 
never  cease  to  act  by  its  own  energy, 
Motion  is  a  manner  of  being,  which 
matter  derives  from  its  peculiar  exist- 
ence. 

The  existence  then  of  matter  is  a 
fact ;  the  existence  of  motion  is  another 
fact.  Our  visual  organs  point  out  to 
us  matter  with  different  essences,  form- 
ing a  variety  of  combinations,  endow- 
ed with  various  properties  that  dis- 
criminate them.  Indeed,  it  is  an  errour 
to  believe  that  matter  is  a  homogene 
ous  body,  of  which  the  parts  differ 
from  each  other  only  by  their  various 
modifications.  Among  the  individuals 
of  the  same  species  that  come  under 
our  notice,  no  two  are  exactly  alike, 
and  it  is  therefore  evident  that  the  dif- 
ference of  situation  alone,  will  neces- 
sarily carry  a  diversity  more  or  less 
sensible,  not  only  in  the  modifications, 
but  also  in  the  essence,  in  the  proper- 
ties, in  the  entire  system  of  beings.* 

if  this  principle  be  properly  weighed, 

manner,  that  the  world  was  made  of  nothing. 
TERTULLIAN,  and  the  father  PETAU,  both  ad- 
mit that,  "  this  is  a  truth  established  more  by 
reasoning,  than  by  authority."  ST.  JUSTIN 
seems  to  nave  contemplated  matter  as  eternal, 
since  he  commends  PLATO  for  having  said 
that  "  God  in  the  creation  of  the  world  only 

Save  impulse  to  matter,  and  fashioned  it. 
URNET  and  PYTHAGORAS  were  entirely  of 
this  opinion,  and  even  the  church  service  may 
be  adduced  in  support ;  for  although  it  admits 
by  implication  a  beginning,  it  expressly  denies 
an  end :  "  As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now, 
and  ever  shall  be,  world  without  end."  It  is 
easy  to  perceive,  that  that  which  cannot  cease 
to  exist,  must  have  always  been. 

*  Those  who  have  observed  nature  closely, 
know  that  two  grains  of  sand  are  not  stricily 
alike.  As  soon  as  the  circumstances  or  the 
modifications  are  not  the  same  for  the  beings 
of  the  same  species,  there  cannot  be  an  exact 
resemblance  between  them.  SEE  CHAP.  vi. 
This  truth  was  well  understood  by  the  pro- 
found and  subtle  LEIBNITZ.  This  is  the  man- 
ner in  which  one  of  his  disciples  explained 
himself:  Ex  principio  indiscernibilium  patet 
elementa  rerum  materialium  singula  singulis 
esse  dissimilia,  adeo  que  unum  ab  altero  dis- 
tingui,  convenienter  omnia  extra  se  invicem 
existere,  in  quo  differunt  a  punctis  mathema- 
ticis,  cum  ilia  uti  haec  nunquam  coincidere 
possint.  BILFINGER,  Di  DEO,  ANIMA  ET 
MUNDO,  page  276, 


OP  MOTION. 


and  experience  seems  always  to  pro- 
duce evidence  of  its  truth,  we  must  be 
convinced,  that  the  matter,  or  primi- 
tive elements  which  enter  the  compo- 
sition of  bodies,  are  not  of  the  same  na- 
ture, and,  consequently,  can  neither 
have  the  same  properties,  nor  the  same 
modifications ;  and  if  so,  they  cannot 
have  the  same  mode  of  moving,  and 
acting.  Their  activity  or  motion,  al- 
ready different,  can  be  diversified  to  in- 
finity, augmented  or  diminished,  acce- 
lerated or  retarded,  according  to  the 
combinations,  the  proportions,  the  pres- 
sure, the  density,  the  volume  of  the 
matter  that  enters  their  composition. 
The  element  of  fire,  is  visibly  more 
active  and  more  inconstant  than  that 
of  earth.  This  is  more  solid  and  pon- 
derous than  fire,  air,  or  water.  Ac- 
cording to  the  quality  of  the  elements 
which  enter  the  composition  of  bodies, 
these  must  act  diversely,  and  their  mo- 
tion must  in  some  measure  partake  the 
motion  peculiar  to  each  of  their  constitu- 
ent parts.  Elementary  fire  appears  to 
be  in  nature  the  principle  of  activity ; 
it  may  be  compared  to  a  fruitful  leaven, 
that  puts  the  mass  into  fermentation 
and  gives  it  life.  Earth  appears  to  be 
the  principle  of  solidity  in  bodies,  from 
its  impenetrability,  and  by  the  firm  co- 
herence of  its  parts.  Water  is  a  me- 
dium, to  facilitate  the  combination  of 
bodies,  into  which  it  enters  itself  as  a 
constituent  part.  Air  is  a  fluid,  whose 
business  it  seems  to  be,  to  furnish  the 
other  elements  with  the  space  requisite 
to  exercise  their  motion,  and  which  is, 
moreover,  found  proper  to  combine 
with  them.  These  elements,  which 
our  senses  never  discover  in  a  pure 
state ;  which  are  continually  and  reci- 
procally set  in  motion  by  each  other ; 
which  are  always  acting  and  re-acting; 
combining  and  separating ;  attracting 
and  repelling ;  are  sufficient  to  explain 
to  us  the  formation  of  all  the  beings  we 
behold.  Their  motion  is  uninterrupt- 
edly, and  reciprocally,  produced  from 
each  other ;  they  are  alternately  causes 
and  effects.  Thus,  they  form  a  vast 
circle  of  generation  and  destruction,  of 
combination  and  decomposition,  which 
could  never  have  had  a  beginning,  and 
which  can  never  have  an  end.  In 
short,  nature  is  but  an  immense  chain 
of  causes  and  effects,  which  unceasing- 
ly flow  from  each  other.  The  motion  [ 


of  particular  beings  depends  on  the 
general  motion,  which  is  itself  main- 
tained by  individual  motion.  This  is 
strengthened  or  Aveakened — accelera- 
ted or  retarded — simplified  or  compli- 
cated— procreated  or  destroyed,  by  a 
variety  of  combinations  and  circum- 
stances, which  every  moment  change 
the  directions,  the  tendency,  the  modes 
of  existing  and  of  acting,  of  the  differ- 
ent beings  that  receive  its  impulse.* 

If  we  desire  to  go  beyond  this,  to 
find  the  principle  of  action  in  matter 
and  to  trace  the  origin  of  things,  it  is 
for  ever  to  fall  back  upon  difficulties ;  it 
is  absolutely  to  abridge  the  evidence  of 
our  senses,  by  which  alone  we  can 
judge  of  and  understand  the  causes 
acting  upon  them,  or  the  impulse  by 
which  they  are  set  in  action. 

Let  us,  therefore,  content  ourselves 
with  saying  that  which  is  supported 
by  our  experience,  and  by  all  the  evi- 
dence we  are  capable  of  understanding ; 
against  the  truth  of  which,  not  a  shadow 
of  proof  such  as  our  reason  can  admit, 
has  ever  been  adduced ;  which  has  been 
maintained  by  philosophers  in  every 
age  ;  which  theologians  themselves 
have  not  denied,  but  which  many  of 
them  have  upheld ;  namely,  that  matter 
always  existed;  that  it  moves  by  virtue 
of  its  essence  ;  that  all  the  phenomena 
of  Nature  is  ascribable  to  the  diver  si- 
jied  motion  of  the  variety  of  matter  she 
contains  ;  and  which,  like  the  phenia?, 
is  continually  regenerating  out  of  her 
own  ashesj 


*  If  it  were  true  that  every  thing  has  a 
tendency  to  form  one  unique  or  single  mass, 
and  in  that  unique  mass  the  instant  should 
arrive  when  all  was  in  ni-sus,  all  would  eter- 
nally remain  in  this  state — to  all  eternity  there 
would  be  but  one  effort,  and  this  would  be 
eternal  and  universal  death.  Natural  philo- 
sophers understand  by  nisus  the  effort  of  one 
body  against  another  body,  without  local 
translation.  This  granted,  there  could  be  no 
cause  of  dissolution,  for,  according  to  chy- 
mists,  bodies  act  only  when  dissolved.  Cor- 
pora non  agunt  nisi  sint  soluta. 

t  Omnium  quae  in  sempiterno  isto  mundo 
semper  fuerunt  futuraque  sunt,  aiunt  principium 
fuisse  nullum,  sed  orbem  esse  quemdam  gene- 
rantium  nascentiumque,  in  quo  uniuscujusque 
geniti  initium  simul  et  finis  esse  videtur. — 
V.  CEKSORIN.  De  Die  Natcdi. 

The  poet  Manilius  expresses  himself  in  the 
same  manner  in  these  beautiful  lines : — 
Omnia  mutantur  mortali  legi  creata, 
Nee  se  cognoscunt  terrae  vertentibus  annis, 
Exutas  variam  faciem  per  saecula  gente*. 


24 


OF  MATTER. 


CHAPTER  III. 


Of  Matter : — Of  its  various  Combinations; 
Of  its  diversified  Motion;  or,  of  the  Course 
of  Nature. 

WE  know  nothing  of  the  elements 
of  bodies,  but  we  know  some  of  their 
properties  or  qualities ;  and  we  distin- 
guish their  various  matter  by  the  effect 
or  change  produced  on  our  senses ;  that 
is  to  say,  by  the  variety  of  motion  their 
presence  excites  in  us.  In  consequence, 
we  discover  in  them  extent,  mobility, 
divisibility,  solidity,  gravity,  and  inert 
force.  From  these  general  and  primi- 
tive properties,  flow  a  number  of  others, 
such  as  density,  figure,  colour,  ponder- 
osity, &c.  Thus,  relatively  to  us,  matter 
is  all  that  affects  our  senses,  in  any 
manner  whatever ;  the  various  proper- 
ties we  attribute  to  matter,  are  founded 
on  the  different  impressions  we  receive, 
on  the  changes  they  produce  in  us. 

A  satisfactory  definition  of  matter 
has  not  yet  been  given.  Man,  deceived 
and  led  astray  by  his  prejudices,  formed 
but  vague,  superficial,  and  imperfect 
notions  concerning  it.  He  looked  upon 
it  as  a  unique  being,  gross  and  passive, 
incapable  of  either  moving  by  itself,  of 
forming  combinations,  or  of  producing 
any  thing  by  its  own  energies  ;  whilst 
he  ought  to  have  contemplated  it  as  a 
genus  of  beings,  of  which  the  indi- 
viduals, although  they  might  possess 
some  common  properties,  such  as  ex- 
tent, divisibility,  figure,  &c.,  should  not, 
however,  be  all  ranked  in  the  same 
class,  nor  comprised  under  the  same 
general  denomination. 

An  example  will  serve  more  fully 
to  explain  what  we  have  just  asserted, 
throw  its  correctness  into  light,  and 
facilitate  the  application.  The  proper- 
ties common  to  all  matter,  are,  extent, 
divisibility,  impenetrability,  figure,  mo- 
bility, or  the  property  of  being  moved 
in  mass.  Fire,  beside  these  general 

At  manet  incolumis  mundus  suaque  omnia 

servat, 

Quae  nee  longadies  auget,  minuitque  senectus, 
Nee  motus  puncto  currit,  cursusque  fatigat : 
Idem  semper  erit,  quoniam  semper  fuit  idem. 
Manilii  Astronom.  Lib.  I. 

This  also  was  the  opinion  of  PYTHAGORAS, 
such  as  it  is  set  forth  by  Ovid,  in  the  fifteenth 
Book  of  his  Metamorphoses,  verse  165,  and 
the  following : — 

Omnia  mutantur,  nihil  interit ;  errat  et  illinc. 

Hue  venit,  nine  illuc,  &c. 


properties  common  to  all  matter,  enjoys 
also  the  peculiar  property  of  being  put 
into  activity  by  a  motion  producing  on 
our  organs  of  feeling  the  sensation  of 
heat,  and  by  another,  which  communi- 
cates to  our  visual  organs  the  sensation 
of  light.  Iron,  in  common  with  matter 
in  general,  has  extent  and  figure;  is 
divisible,  and  moveable  in  mass :  if  fire 
be  combined  with  it  in  a  certain  propor- 
tion, the  iron  acquires  two  new  proper- 
ties, namely,  those  of  exciting  in  us 
similar  sensations  of  heat  and  light, 
which  the  iron  had  not  before  its  com- 
bination with  the  igneous  matter.  These 
distinguishing  properties  are  insepara- 
ble from  matter,  and  the  phenomena  that 
result,  may,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the 
word,  be  said  to  result  necessarily. 

If  we  only  contemplate  the  paths  of 
nature ;  if  we  trace  the  beings  in  this 
nature  under  the  different  states  through 
which,  by  reason  of  their  properties,  they 
are  compelled  to  pass,  we  shall  discover 
that  it  is  to  motion,  and  motion  alone, 
that  is  to  be  ascribed  all  the  changes, 
all  the  combinations,  all  the  forms,  in 
short,  all  the  various  modifications  of 
matter.  That  it  is  by  motion  every 
thing  that  exists  is  produced,  expe- 
riences change,  expands,  and  is  de- 
stroyed. It  is  motion  that  alters  the 
aspect  of  beings,  that  adds  to,  or  takes 
away  from  their  properties  ;  which 
obliges  each  of  them,  by  a  consequence 
of  its  nature,  after  having  occupied  a 
certain  rank  or  order,  to  quit  it  to  occupy 
another,  and  to  contribute  to  the  gene- 
ration, maintenance,  and  decomposition 
of  other  beings,  totally  different  in  their 
bulk,  rank,  and  essence. 

In  what  experimental  philosophers 
have  styled  the  three  orders  of  nature, 
that  is  to  say,  the  mineral,  the  vegetable, 
and  the  animal  worlds,  they  have  estab- 
lished, by  the  aid  of  motion,  a  transmi- 
gration, an  exchange,  a  continual  circu- 
lation in  the  particles  of  matter.  Nature 
has  occasion  in  one  place  for  those  par- 
ticles which,  for  a  time,  she  has  placed 
in  another.  These  particles,  after  hav- 
ing, by  particular  combinations,  con- 
stituted beings  endued  with  peculiar 
essences,  with  specific  properties,  with 
determinate  modes  of  action,  dissolve 
and  separate  with  more  or  less  facility ; 
and  combining  in  a  new  manner,  they 
form  new  beings.  The  attentive  ob- 
server sees  this  law  execute  itself  in  a 


OP  MATTER. 


manner  more  or  less  prominent  through 
all  the  beings  by  which  he  is  surround- 
ed. He  sees  nature  full  of  erratic 
germs,  some  of  which  expand  them- 
selves, whilst  others  wait  until  motion 
has  placed  them  in  their  proper  situa- 
tion, in  suitable  wombs  or  matrices,  in 
the  necessary  circumstances  to  unfold, 
to  increase,  to  render  them  more  per- 
ceptible by  the  addition  of  other  sub- 
stances of  matter  analogous  to  their 
primitive  being.  In  all  this  we  see 
nothing  but  the  effect  of  motion,  neces- 
sarily guided,  modified,  accelerated  or 
slackened,  strengthened  or  weakened, 
by  reason  of  the  various  properties  that 
beings  successively  acquire  and  lose ; 
which,  every  moment,  infallibly  pro- 
duces alterations  in  bodies,  more  or  less 
marked.  Indeed  these  bodies  cannot 
be,  strictly  speaking,  the  same  in  any 
two  successive  moments  of  their  exist- 
ence ;  they  must,  every  instant,  either 
acquire  or  lose :  in  short,  they  are 
obliged  to  undergo  continual  variations 
in  their  essences,  in  their  properties,  in 
their  energies,  in  their  masses,  in  their 
qualities,  in  their  mode  of  existence. 

Animals,  after  they  have  been  ex- 
panded in,  and  brought  out  of  the 
wombs  that  are  suitable  to  the  ele- 
ments of  their  machine,  enlarge, 
strengthen,  acquire  new  properties,  new 
energies,  new  faculties ;  either  by  de- 
riving nourishment  from  plants  analo- 
gous to  their  being,  or  by  devouring 
other  animals  whose  substance  is  suit- 
able to  their  preservation  ;  that  is  to 
say,  to  repair  the  continual  deperdition, 
or  loss,  of  some  portion  of  their  own 
substance  that  is  disengaging  itself 
every  instant.  These  same  animals 
are  nourished,  preserved,  strengthened, 
and  enlarged  by  the  aid  of  air,  water, 
earth,  and  fire.  Deprived  of  air,  or  of 
the  fluid  that  surrounds  them,  that 
presses  on  them,  that  penetrates  them, 
that  gives  them  their  elasticity,  they 
presently  cease  to  live.  Water  com- 
bined with  this  air,  enters  into  their 
whole  mechanism,  of  which  it  facili- 
tates the  motion.  Earth  serves  them 
for  a  basis,  by  giving  solidity  to  their 
texture :  it  is  conveyed  by  air  and 
water,  which  carry  it  to  those  parts  of 
the  body  with  which  it  can  combine. 
Fire  itself,  disguised  and  enveloped 
under  an  infinity  of  forms,  continually 
received  into  the  animal,  procures  him 

No.  I.— 4 


|  heat,  continues  him  in  life,  renders  him 
capable  of  exercising  his  functions. 
The  aliments,  charged  with  these  va- 
rious principles,  entering  into  the  sto- 
mach, re-establish,  the  nervous  system, 
and  restore,  by  their  activity,  and  the 
elements  which  compose  them,  the 
machine  which  begins  to  languish,  to 
be  depressed,  by  the  loss  it  has  sustain- 
ed. Forthwith  the  animal  experiences 
a  change  in  his  whole  system  ;  he  has 
more  energy,  more  activity ;  he  feels 
more  courage ;  displays  more  gaiety ; 
he  acts,  he  moves,  he  thinks,  after  a 
different  manner ;  all  his  faculties  are 
exercised  with  more  ease.*  From  this 
it  is  clear,  that  what  are  called  the  ele- 
ments, or  primitive  parts  of  matter, 
when  variously  combined,  are,  by  the 
agency  of  motion,  continually  united 
to,  and  assimilated  with  the  substance 
of  animals:  that  they  visibly  modify 
their  being,  have  an  evident  influence 
over  their  actions,  that  is  to  say,  upon 
the  motion  they  undergo,  whether  vi- 
sible or  concealed. 

The  same  elements,  which  under 
certain  circumstances  serve  to  nourish, 
to  strengthen,  to  maintain  the  animal, 
become,  under  others,  the  principles  of 
his  weakness,  the  instruments  of  his 
dissolution,  of  his  death  :  they  work 
his  destruction,  whenever  they  are  not 
in  that  just  proportion,  which  renders 
them  proper  to  maintain  his  existence : 
thus,  when  water  becomes  too  abundant 
in  the  body  of  the  animal,  it  enervates 
him,  it  relaxes  the  fibres,  and  impedes 
the  necessary  action  of  the  other  ele- 
ments :  thu«,  fire  admitted  in  excess, 
excites  in  him  disorderly  motion,  des- 
tructive of  his  machine :  thus,  air, 
charged  with  principles  not  analogous 
to  his  mechanism,  brings  upon  him 
dangerous  diseases  and  contagion.  In 
fine,  the  aliments  modified  after  certain 


*  We  may  here  remark,  that  all  spirituoos 
substances  (that  is  to  say,  those  containing  a 
great  proportion  of  inflammable  and  igneous 
matter,  such  as  wine,  brandy,  liquors,  &c.) 
are  those  that  accelerate  most  the  organic 
motion  of  animals,  by  communicating  to  them 
heat.  Thus,  -wine  generates  courage,  and 
even  wit.  In  spring  and  summer  myriads  of 
insects  are  hatched,  and  a  luxuriant  vegeta- 
tion springs  into  life,  because  the  matter  of 
fire  is  then  more  abundant  than  in  winter, 
This  igneous  matter  is  evidently  the  cause  of 
fermentation,  of  generation,  and  of  life— th« 
Jupiter  of  the  ancients. 


26 


OF   MATTER. 


modes,  instead  of  nourishing  destroy 
the  animal,  and  conduce  to  his  ruin  : 
the  animal  is  preserved  no  longer  than 
these  substances  are  analogous  to  his 
system.  They  ruin  him  when  they 
want  that  just  equilibrium  that  renders 
them  suitable  to  maintain  his  exist- 
ence. 

Plants,  that  serve  to  nourish  and  re- 
store animals,  are  themselves  nourish- 
ed by  earth ;  they  expand  on  its  bosom, 
enlarge  and  strengthen  at  its  expense, 
continually  receiving  into  their  texture, 
by  their  roots  and  their  pores,  water, 
air,  and  igneous  matter  :  water  visibly 
reanimates  them  whenever  their  vege- 
tation, or  genus  of  life,  languishes  ;  it 
conveys  to  them  those  analogous  prin- 
ciples by  which  they  are  enabled  to 
reach  perfection ;  air  is  requisite  to 
their  expansion,  and  furnishes  them 
with  water,  earth,  and  igneous  matter 
with  which  it  is  charged.  By  these 
means  they  receive  more  or  less  of  the 
inflammable  matter  j  and  the  different 
proportions  of  these  principles,  their 
numerous  combinations,  from  whence 
result  an  infinity  of  properties,  a  variety 
of  forms,  constitute  the  various  families 
and  classes  into  which  botanists  have 
distributed  plants  :  it  is  thus,  we  see 
the  cedar,  and  the  hyssop,  develop 
their  growth ;  the  one,  rises  to  the 
clouds  ;  the  other,  creeps  humbly  on 
the  earth.  Thus,  by  degrees,  from  an 
acorn  springs  the  majestic  oak,  ac- 
cumulating with  time  its  numerous 
branches,  and  overshadowing  us  with 
its  foliage.  Thus,  a  grain  of  corn,  after 
having  drawn  its  own  nourishment 
from  the  juices  of  the  earth,  serves,  in 
its  turn,  for  the  nourishment  of  man, 
into  whose  system  it  conveys  the  ele- 
ments or  principles  by  which  it  has 
been  itself  expanded — combined  and 
modified  in  such  a  manner,  as  to  render 
this  vegetable  proper  to  assimilate  and 
unite  with  the  human  frame :  that  is  to 
say,  with  the  fluids  and  solids  of  which 
it  is  composed. 

The  same  elements,  the  same  prin- 
ciples, are  found  in  the  formation  of 
minerals,  and  also  in  their  decomposi- 
tion, whether  natural  or  artificial.  We 
find  that  earth  diversely  modified, 
wrought  and  combined,  serves  to  in- 
crease their  bulk,  and  give  them  more 
or  less  density  and  gravity.  Air  and 
water  contribute  to  make  their  parti- 


cles cohere  :  the  igneous  matter,  or  iir- 
flammable  principle,  tinges  them  with 
colour,  and  sometimes,  plainly  indi- 
cates its  presence  by  the  brilliant  scin- 
tillation, which  motion  elicits  from 
them.  These  stones  and  rnetals,  these 
bodies  so  compact  and  solid,  are  dis- 
united, are  destroyed,  by  the  agency 
of  air,  water,  and  fire  which  the  most 
ordinary  analysis  is  sufficient  to  prove, 
as  well  as  a  multitude  of  experience  to 
which  our  eyes  are  the  daily  evidence. 

Animals,  plants,  and  minerals,  aftei 
a  lapse  of  time,  give  back  to  nature — 
that  is  to  say,  to  the  general  mass  of 
things,  to  the  universal  magazine — 
the  elements  or  principles  which  they 
have  borrowed.  The  earth  retakes 
that  portion  of  the  body  of  which  it 
formed  the  basis  and  the  solidity  ;  the 
air  charges  itself  with  those  parts  that 
are  analogous  to  it,  and  with  those  par- 
ticles which  are  light  and  subtile ; 
water  carries  off  that  which  is  suitable 
to  liquescency ;  fire  bursting  its  chains, 
disengages  itself,  and  rushes  into  new 
combinations  with  other  bodies. 

The  elementary  particles  of  the  ani- 
mal being  thus  dissolved,  disunited, 
and  dispersed,  assume  new  activity,, 
and  form  new  combinations :  thus,  they. 
serve  to  nourish,  to  preserve,  or  destroy 
new  beings — among  others,  plants, 
which,  arrived  at  their  maturity,  nour- 
ish and  preserve  new  animals  ;  these,, 
in  their  turn,  yielding  to  the  same  fate 
as  the  first. 

Such  is  the  invariable  course  of  Na- 
ture :  such  is  the  eternal  circle  of  mu- 
tation, which  all  that  exists  is  obliged 
to  describe.  It  is  thus  that  motion 
generates,  preserves  for  a  time,  and 
successively  destroys  one  part  of  the 
universe  by  the  other ;  whilst  the  sum 
of  existence  remains  eternally  the 
same.  Nature,  by  its  combinations,, 
produces  suns,  which  place  them- 
selves in  the  centre  of  so  many  sys- 
tems :  she  forms  planets,  which,  by 
their  peculiar  essence,  gravitate  and 
describe  their  revolutions  round  these 
suns :  by  degrees  the  motion  is  chang- 
ed altogether,  and  becomes  eccentric  t 
perhaps  the  day  may  arrive  when  these 
wondrous  masses  will  disperse,  of 
which  man,  in  the  short  space  of  his- 
existence,  can  only  have  a  faint  and 
transient  glimpse. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  the  continual 


OF  THE   LAWS   OF   MOTION. 


27 


motion  inherent  in  matter,  changes 
and  destroys  all  beings  ;  eveiy  instant 
depriving  them  of  some  of  their  pro- 
perties to  substitute  ethers  :  it  is  mo- 
tion which,  in  thus  changing  their 
actual  essence,  changes  also  their  order, 
their  direction,  their  tendency,  and  the 
laws  which  regulate  their  mode  of  act- 
ing and  being :  from  the  stone  formed 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  by  the  inti- 
mate combination  and  close  coherence 
of  similar  and  analogous  particles,  to 
the  sun,  that  vast  reservoir  of  igneous 
particles,  which  sheds  torrents  of  light 
over  the  firmament ;  from  the  benumb- 
ed oyster,  to  the  thoughtful  and  active 
man,  we  see  an  uninterrupted  progres- 
sion, a  perpetual  chain  of  motion  and 
combination,  from  which  is  produced 
beings,  that  only  differ  from  each  other 
by  the  variety  of  their  elementary  mat- 
ter :  and  by  the  numerous  combina- 
tions of  these  elements  spring  modes 
of  action  and  existence,  diversified  to 
infinity.  In  generation,  in  nutrition, 
in  preservation,  we  see  nothing  more 
than  matter  variously  combined,  of 
which  each  has  its  peculiar  motion,  re- 
gulated by  fixed  and  determinate  laws, 
which  oblige  them  to  submit  to  neces- 
sary changes.  We  shall  find  in  the 
formation,  in  the  growth,  in  the  in- 
stantaneous life  of  animals,  vegetables 
and  minerals,  nothing  but  matter, 
which,  combining,  accumulating,  ag- 
gregating, and  expanding  by  degrees, 
forms  beings,  who  are  either  feeling, 
living,  vegetating,  or  else  destitute  of 
these  faculties ;  and  having  existed 
some  time  under  one  particular  form, 
they  are  obliged  to  contribute  by  their 
ruia  to  the  production  of  other  forms.* 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Of  the.  Laws  of  Motion  common  to  all  the 
Beings  of  Nature — Of  Attraction  and  Re- 
pulsion— Of  inert  Force — Of  Necessity. 

MAN  is  never  surprised  at  those  effects 
of  which  he  thinks  he  knows  the  cause; 
he  believes  he  does  know  the  cause  as 

*  Destructio  unius,  generatio  alterius.  Thus, 
to  speak  strictly,  nothing  in  nature  is  either 
born,  or  dies,  according  to  the  common  ac- 
ceptation of  those  terms.  This  truth  was 
felt  by  many  of  the  ancient  philosophers. 
PLATO  tells  us,  that  according  to  an  old  tra- 
dition, "  the  living  were  born  of  the  dead,  the 


soon  as  he  sees  them  act  in  a  uniform 
and  determinate  manner,  or  when  the 
motion  excited  is  simple :  the  descent 
of  a  stone,  that  falls  by  its  own  peculiar 
Aveight,  is  an  object  of  meditation  only 
to  the  philosopher,  to  whom  the  mode 
by  which  the  most  immediate  causes 
act,  and  the  most  simple  motion,  are 
no  less  impenetrable  mysteries  than  the 
most  complex  motion,  and  the  manner 
by  which  the  most  complicated  causes 
give  impulse.  The  uninformed  are 
seldom  tempted  either  to  examine  the 
effects  which  are  familiar  to  them,  or 
to  recur  to  first  principles.  They  think 
they  see  nothing  in  the  descent  of  a 
stone  which  ought  to  elicit  their  sur- 
prise, or  become  the  object  of  their 
research :  it  requires  a  Newton  to  feel 
that  the  descent  of  heavy  bodies  is  a 
phenomenon  worthy  his  whole,  his  most 
serious  attention  :  it  requires  the  saga- 
city of  a  profound  experimental  philo- 
sopher, to  discover  the  laws  by  which 
heavy  bodies  fall,  by  which  they  com- 
municate to  others  their  peculiar  motion. 
In  short,  the  mind  that  is  most  practised 
in  philosophical  observation,  has  fre- 
quently the  chagrin  to  find,  that  the 
most  simple  and  most  common  effects 
escape  all  his  researches,  and  remain 
inexplicable  to  him. 

When  any  extraordinary,  any  un- 
usual effect  13  produced,  to  which  our 
eyes  have  not  been  accustomed  ;  or 
when  we  are  ignorant  of  the  energies 
of  the  cause,  the  action  of  which  so 
forcibly  strikes  our  senses,  we  are 
tempted  to  meditate  upon  it,  and  take 
it  into  our  consideration.  The  Euro- 
pean, accustomed  to  the  use  of  gun- 
poudei\  passes  it  by,  without  thinking 
much  of  its  extraordinary  energies ;  the 
workman,  who  labours  to  manufacture 
it,  finds  nothing  marvellous  in  its  pro- 
perties, because  he  daily  handles  the 

same  as  the  dead  did  come  of  the  living;  and 
that  this  is  the  constant  routine  of  nature." 
He  adds  from  himself,  "  Who  knows  if  to  live, 
be  not  to  die;  and  if  to  die,  be  not  to  live?" 
This  was  the  doctrine  of  PYTHAGORAS,  a  man 
of  great  talent  and  no  less  note.  EMPEDOCLES 
says,  "There  is  neither  birth  nor  death  for  any 
mortal,  but  only  a  combination  and  a  separa- 
tion of  that  which  was  combined,  and  this 
is  what  amongst  men  they  call  birth  and 
death."  Again  he  remarks,  "Those  are  in- 
fants, or  short-sighted  persons  with  very  con- 
tracted understandings,  who  imagine  any 
thing  is  born  which  did  not  exist  before,  or 
that  any  thing  can  die  or  perish  totally." 


28 


OF  THE  LA\VS  OF  MOTION. 


matter  that  enters  its  composition. 
The  American,  who  had  never  beheld 
its  operation,  looked  upon  it  as  a  divine 
power,  and  its  energies  as  supernatural. 
The  uninformed,  who  are  ignorant  of 
the  true  cause  of  thunder,  contemplate 
it  as  the  instrument  of  celestial  ven- 
geance. The  experimental  philosopher 
considers  it  as  the  effect  of  the  electric 
matter,  which,  nevertheless,  is  itself  a 
cause  which  he  is  very  far  from  per- 
fectly understanding.* 

Be  this  as  it  may,  whenever  we  see 
a  cause  act,  we  look  upon  its  effect  as 
natural :  when  this  cause  becomes  fa- 
miliar to  the  sight,  when  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  it,  we  think  we  understand  it, 
and  its  effects  surprise  us  no  longer. 
Whenever  any  unusual  effect  is  per3 
ceived  without  our  discovering  the 
cause,  the  mind  sets  to  work,  becomes 
uneasy ;  this  uneasiness  increases  in 
proportion  to  its  extent :  as  soon  as  it 
is  believed  to  threaten  our  preservation, 
we  become  completely  agitated :  we 
seek  after  the  cause  with  an  earnestness 
proportioned  to  our  alarm ;  our  per- 
plexity augments  in  a  ratio  equivalent 
to  the  persuasion  we  are  under  how 
essentially  requisite  it  is  we  should 
become  acquainted  with  the  cause,  that 
has  affected  us -in  so  lively  a  manner. 
As  it  frequently  happens  that  our  senses 
can  teach  us  nothing  respecting  this 
cause  which  so  deeply  interests  -us, 
which  we  seek  with  so  much  ardour ; 
we  have  recourse  to  our  imagination ; 
this,  disturbed  with  alarm,  enervated 
by  fear,  becomes  a  suspicious,  a  falla- 
cious guide  :  we  create  chimeras,  ficti- 
tious causes,  to  whom  we  give  the 
credit,  to  whom  we  ascribe  the  honour 
of  those  phenomena  by  which  we  have 
been  so  much  alarmed.  It  is  to  this 
disposition  of  the  human  mind  that 
must  be  attributed,  as  will  be  seen  in 
the  sequel,  the  religious  errours  of 
man,  who,  despairing  of  the  capability 
to  trace  the  natural  causes  of  those 


*  It  required  the  keen,  the  penetrating  mind 
of  a  FRANKLIN,  to  throw  light  on  the  nature 
of  this  subtile  fluid ;  to  develop  the  means  by 
which  ils  effects  might  be  rendered  harmless ; 
Jo  turn  to  useful  purposes  a  phenomenon  that 
made  the  ignorant  tremble,  that  filled  their 
minds  with  terrour,  their  hearts  with  dismay, 
as  indicating  the  anger  of  the  gods :  impressed 
with  this  idea,  they  prostrated  themselves, 
they  sacrificed  to  Jupiter  or  Johovah,  to  depre- 
cate their  wrath. 


perplexing  phenomena  to  which  he 
was  the  witnesSj  and  sometimes  The 
victim,  created  m  his  brain,  heated 
with  terrour,  imaginary  causes,  which 
have  become  to  him  a  source  of  the  i 
most  extravagant  folly. 

In  nature,  however,  there  can  be 
only  natural  causes  and  effects ;  all  the 
motion  excited  in  this  nature  follows 
constant  and  necessary  laws:  the  natu- 
ral operations  to  the  knowledge  of  which 
we  are  competent,  of  which  we  are  in 
a  capacity  to  judge,  are  of  themselves 
sufficient  to  enable  us  to  discover  those 
which  elude  our  sight ;  we  can  at  least 
judge  of  them  by  analogy.  If  we  study 
nature  with  attention,  the  modes  of 
action  which  she  displays  to  our  senses 
will  teach  us  not,  to  be  disconcerted  by 
those  which  she  refuses  to  discover. 
Those  causes  which  are  th«  most  re- 
mote from  their  effects,  unquestionably 
act  by  intermediate  causes ;  by  the  aid 
of  these,  we  can  frequently  trace  out 
the  first.  If  in  the  chain  of  these  causes 
we  sometimes  meet  with  obstacles  that 
oppose  themselves  to  our  research,  we 
ought  to  endeavour  by  patience  and 
diligence  to  overcome  them ;  when  it 
so  happens  we  cannot  surmount  the 
difficulties  that  occur,  we  still  are  never 
justified  in  concluding  the  chain  to  be 
broken,  or  that  the  cause  which  acts  is 
supernatural.  Let  us,  then,  be  con-  r 
tent  with  an  honest  avowal,  that  Nature 
contains  resources  of  which  we  are 
ignorant ;  but  never  let  us  substitute 
phantoms,  fictions,  or  imaginary  causes, 
senseless  terms,  for  those  causes  which 
escape  our  research;  because,  by  such 
means,  we  only  confirm  ourselves  in 
ignorance,  impede  our  inquiries,  and 
obstinately  remain  in  errour.  ''. 

In  spite  of  our  ignorance  with  respect 
to  the  meanderings  of  Nature,  of  the 
essence  of  beings,  of  their  properties, 
their  elements,  their  combinations,  their 
proportions,  we  yet  know  the  simple 
and  general  laws  according  to  which 
bodies  move,  and  we  see-  clearly,  that 
some  of  these  laws,  common  to  all 
beings,  never  contradict  themselves  : 
although,  on  some  occasions,  they  ap- 
pear to  vary,  we  are  frequently  compe- 
tent to  discover  that  the  cause  becoming 
complex,  from  combination  with  other 
causes,  either  impedes,  or  prevents  its 
mode  of  action,  being  such  as  in  its 
primitive  state  we  had  a  right  to  expect 


OP  THE  LAWS  OF  MOTION. 


We  know  that  active,  igneous  matter, 
applied  to  gunpowder,  must  necessarily 
cause  it  to  explode :  whenever  this  effect 
does  not  follow  the  combination  of  the 
igneods  matter  with  the  gunpowder, 
whenever  our  senses  do  not  give  us 
evidence  of  the  fact,  we  are  justified  in 
concluding,  either  that  the  powder  is 
damp,  or  that  it  is  united  with  some 
other  substance  that  counteracts  its  ex- 
plosion. We  know  that  all  the  actions 
of  man  have  a  tendency  to  render  him 
happy :  whenever,  therefore,  we  see  him 
labouring  to  injure  or  destroy  himself, 
it  is  just  to  infer  that  he  is  moved  by 
some  cause  opposed  to  his  natural  ten- 
dency ;  that  he  is  deceived  by  some 
prejudice ;  that,  for  want  of  experience, 
he  is  blind  to  consequences :  that  he 
does  not  see  whither  his  actions  will 
lead  him. 

If  the  motion  excited  in  beings  was 
always  simple ;  if  their  actions  did  not 
blend  and  combine  with  each  other,  it 
would  be  easy  to  know  the  effect  a 
cause  would  produce.  I  know  that  a 
stone,  when  descending,  ought  to  de- 
scribe a  perpendicular :  I  also  know, 
that  if  it  encounters  any  other  body 
which  changes  its  course,  it  is  obliged 
to  take  an  oblique  direction ;  but  if  its 
fall  be  interrupted  by  several  contrary 
powers  which  act  upon  it  alternately, 
I  am  no  longer  competent  to  determine 
what  line  it  will  describe.  It  may  be 
a  parabola,  an  ellipsis,  spiral,  circular, 
&c.;  this  will  depend  on  the  impulse  it 
receives,  and  the  powers  by  which  it  is 
impelled. 

The  most  complex  motion,  however, 
is  never  more  than  the  result  of  simple 
motion  combined :  therefore,  as  soon  as 
we  know  the  general  laws  of  beings, 
and  their  action,  we  have  only  to  de- 
compose and  to  analyze  them,  in  order 
to  discover  those  of  which  they  are 
combined:  experience  teaches  us  the 
effects  we  are  to  expect.  Thus  it  is 
clear,  the  simplest  motion  causes  that 
necessary  junction  of  different  matter 
of  which  all  bodies  are  composed :  that 
matter  varied  in  its  essence,  in  its  pro- 
perties, in  its  combinations,  has  each 
its  several  modes  of  action,  or  motion, 
peculiar  to  itself:  the  whole  motion  of 
a  body  is  consequently  the  sum  total  of 
each  particular  motion  that  is  combined. 

Amongst  the  matter  we  behold,  some 
is  constantly  disposed  to  unite,  whilst 


other  is  incapable  of  union ;  that  which 
is  suitable  to  unite,  forms  combinations 
more  or  less  intimate,  possessing  more 
or  less  durability :  that  is  to  say,  with 
more  or  less  capacity  to  preserve  their 
union  and  to  resist  dissolution.  Those 
bodies  which  are  called  solids,  receive 
into  their  composition  a  great  number 
of  homogeneous,  similar,  and  analogous 
particles,  disposed  to  unite  themselves ; 
with  energies  conspiring  or  tending  to 
the  same  point.  The  primitive  beings, 
or  elements  of  bodies,  have  need  of 
support,  of  props,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
presence  of  each  other,  for  the  purpose 
of  preserving  themselves ;  of  acquiring 
consistence,  or  solidity  ;  a  truth  which 
applies  with  equal  uniformity  to  what 
is  called  physical,  as  to  what  is  termed 
moral. 

"It  is  upon  this  disposition  in  matter 
and  bodies  with  relation  to  each  other, 
that  is  founded  those  modes  of  action 
which  natural  philosophers  designate 
by  the  terms  attraction,  repulsion, 
sympathy,  antipathy,  affinities,  rela- 
tions.* Moralists  describe  this  dispo- 
sition under  the  names  of  love,  hatred, 
friendship,  aversion.  Man,  like  all 
the  beings  in  nature,  experiences  the 
impulse  of  attraction  and  repulsion ; 
the  motion  excited  in  him  differing  from 
that  of  other  beings,  only  because  it  is 
more  concealed,  and  frequently  so  hid- 
den, that  neither  the  causes  which 
excite  it,  nor  their  mode  of  action  are 
known. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  sufficient  for 
us  to  know,  that  by  an  invariable  law 
certain  bodies  are  disposed  to  unite 
with  more  or  less  facility,  whilst  others 


*  This  system  of  attraction  and  repulsion  is 
very  ancient,  although  it  required  a  Newton 
to  develop  it.  That  love,  to  which  the  ancients 
attributed  the  unfolding  or  disentanglement  of 
chaos,  appears  to  have  Deep  nothing  more  than 
a  personification  of  the  principle  of  attraction. 
All  their  allegories  and  fables  upon  chaos,  evi- 
dently indicate  nothing  more  than  the  accord 
or  union  that  exists  between  analogous  and 
homogeneous  substances,  from  whence  re- 
sulted the  existence  of  the  universe :  while 
discord  or  repulsion,  which  they  called  we 
was  the  cause  of  dissolution,  confusion,  and 
disorder.  There  can  scarcely  remain  a  doubt 
but  this  was  the  origin  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
two  principles.  According  to  Diogenes  Lseer- 
tius,  the  philosopher,  Empedocles  asserted, 
"  that  there  is  a  kind  of  affection,  by  which  the 
elements  unite  themselves ;  and  a  sort  of  dis- 
cord, by  which,  they  separate  or  remote  them- 
selves. 


30 


OF  THE  LAWS  OF  MOTION. 


cannot  combine.  Water  combines  itself^ 
readily  with  salt,  but  will  not  blend 
Avith  oil.    Some  combinations  are  very 
strong,  cohering  with  great  force,  as  , 
metals  ;   others  are  extremely  feeble, 
their  cohesion  slight,  and  easily  decom-  , 
posed,  as  in  fugitive  colours.     Some 
bodies,  incapable  of  uniting  by  them- 
selves, become  susceptible  of  union  by  , 
the  agency  of  other  bodies,  which  serve  j 
for  common  bonds  or  mediums'.    Thus,  i 
oil  and  water,'  naturally  heterogeneous, 
combine  and  make  soap,  by  the  inter- 
vention of  alkaline  salt.     From  matter 
diversely  combined,  in  proportions  va-  i 
ried  almost  to  infinity,  result  all  physi-  I 
cal  and  moral  bodies  ;   the  properties  f 
and  qualities  of  which  are  essentially 
different,  with  modes  of  action  more  or 
less  complex :  which  are  either  under- 
stood with  facility,  or  difficult  of  com- 
prehension, according  to  the  matter  that 
has  entered  into  their  composition,  and 
the  various  modifications  this  matter 
has  undergone. 

It  is  thus,  from  the  reciprocity  of  their 
attraction,  that  the  primitive,  impercep- 
tible particles  of  matter  which  consti- 
tute bodies,  become  perceptible,   and 
form  compound  substances,  aggregate 
masses,  by  the  union  of  similar  and 
analogous  matter,  whose  essences  fit 
them  to  cohere.     The  same  bodies  are 
dissolved,  or  their  union  broken,  when-  ; 
ever  they  undergo  the  action  of  matter 
inimical  to  their  junction.     Thus  by 
degrees  are  formed  plants,  metals,  ani- 
mals, men  ;  each  grows,  expands,  and 
increases,  in  its  own  system,  or  order; 
sustaining  itself  in  its  respective  ex- 
istence by  the  continual  attraction  of  ! 
analogous  matter,  to  which  it  becomes 
united,  and  by  which  it  is  preserved  i 
and  strengthened.     Thus,  certain  ali- 1 
ments  become  fit  for  the  sustenance  of  j 
man ;  whilst  others  destroy  his  exist- : 
ence  :     some    are    pleasant    to    him,  i 
strengthen  his  habit ;  others  are  repug- 
nant to  him,  weaken  his  system :  in  ! 
short,  never  to  separate  physical  from  j 
moral  laws — it  is  thus  that  men,  mutu-  i 
ally  attracted  to  each  other  by  their 
reciprocal   wants,  form  those   unions  j 
which  we  designate  by  the  terms  mar-  \ 
riage,  families,  societies,  friendships, 
connexions  :    it    is    thus   that    virtue 
strengthens    and    consolidates    them  ; 
that  vice  relaxes,  or  totally  dissolves 
them. 


Of  whatever  nature  may  be  the  com- 
bination of  beings,  their  motion  has 
always  one  direction  or  tendency :  with- 
out direction  we  could  not  have  any 
idea  of  motion :  this  direction  is  regu- 
lated by  the  properties  of  each  being : 
as  soon  as  they  have  any  given  proper- 
ties, they  necessarily  act  in  obedience 
to  them ;  that  is  to  say,  they  follow  the 
law  invariably  determined  by  these 
same  properties,  which,  of  themselves, 
constitute  the  being  such  as  he  is  found, 
and  settle  his  mode  of  action,  which  is  . 
always  the  con'sequence  of  his  manner 
of  existence.  ,.'  But  what  is  the  general 
direction,  or  common  tendency^  we  see 
in  all  beings  ?  What  is  the  visible  and 
known  end  of  all  their  motion  1  It  is 
to  preserve  their  actual  existence — to 
strengthen  their  several  bodies — to 
attract  that  wmch  is  favourable  to 
them — to  repel  that  which  is  injurious 
to  them — to  avoid  that  which  can  harm 
them,  to  resist  impulsions  contrary  to 
their  manner  of  existence  .and  to  their 
natural  tendency. 

To  exist,  is  to  experience  the  motion 
peculiar  to  a  determinate  essence :  to 
preserve  this  existence,  is  to  give  and 
receive  that  motion  from  which  results 
the  maintenance  of  its  existence : — it 
is  to  attract  matter  suitable  to  corrobo- 
rate its  beingj — to  avoid  that  by  which 
it  may  be  either  endangered,  or  en- 
feebled. Thus,  all  beings  of  which 
we  have  any  knowledge,  have  a  ten- 
dency to  preserve  themselves  each  after 
its  own  peculiar  manner :  the  stone, 
by  the  firm  adhesion  of  its  particles, 
opposes  resistance  to  its  destruction. 
Organized  beings  preserve  themselves 
by  more  complicated  means,  but  which- 
are,  nevertheless,  calculated  to  main- 
tain their  existence  against  that  by 
which  it  may  be  injured.  Man,  both 
in  his  physical  and  in  his  moral  capa- 
city, is  a  living,  feeling,  thinking,  active 
being,  who  every  instant  of  his  duration 
strives  equally  to  avoid  that  which  may 
be  injurious,  and  to  procure  that  which 
is  pleasing  to  him,  or  that  which  is 
suitable  to  his  mode  of  existence.* 

Conservation,  then,  is  the  common 
point  to  which  -all  the  energies,  all  the 
powers,  all  the  faculties  qf  being,  seem 

*  St.  Augustine  admits  /this  tendency  for 
self-preservation  in  all  beings,  whether  organ- 
ized or  not. — See  his  tractate  De  Civitate  Dei, 
lib.  xi.  cap.  28. 


OP  THE  LAWS  OK  MOTION. 


continually  directed.  Natural  philo- 
sophers call  this  direction,  or  tendency, 
self-gravitation.  Newton  calls  it  in- 
ert force.  Moralists  denominate  it,  in 
man,  self-love  ;  which  is  nothing  more 
than  the  tendency  he  has  to  preserve 
himself — a  desire  of  happiness — a  love 
of  his  own  welfare — a  wish  for  plea- 
sure— a  promptitude  in  seizing  on  every 
thing  that  appears  favourable  to  his 
conservation — a  marked  aversion  to  all 
that  either  disturbs  his  happiness,  or 
menaces  his  existence — primitive  sen- 
timents common  to  all  beings  of  the 
human  species,  which  all  their  facul- 
ties are  continually  striving  to  satisfy ; 
which  all  their  passions,  their  wills, 
their  actions,  have  eternally  for  their 
object  and  their  end.  This  self-gravi- 
tation, then,  is  clearly  a  necessary  dis- 
position in  man  and  in  all  other  beings, 
which,  by  a  variety  of  means,  contri- 
butes to  the  preservation  of  the  'exist- 
ence they  have  received  as  Jong  as 
nothing  deranges  the  order  of  their 
machine  or  its  primitive  tendency. 

Cause  always  produces  effect ;  there 
can  be  no  effect  witho'ut  cause.  Im- 
pulse is  always  followed  by  some  mo- 
tion more  or  less  sensible,  by  some 
change  more  or  less  remarkable  in  the 
body  which  receives  it.  But  motion, 
and  its  various  modes  of  displaying  it- 
self, is,  as  has  been  already  shown,  de- 
termined by  the  nature,  the  essence, 
the  properties,  the  combinations  of  the 
beings  acting.  It  must  then  be  con- 
cluded, that  motion,  or  the  modes  by 
which  beings  act,  arises  from  some 
cause ;  and  as  this  cause  is  not  able  to 
move  or  act  but  in  conformity  with  the 
manner  of  its  being,  or  its  essential 
properties,  it  must  equally  be  conclud- 
ed, that  all  the  phenomena  we  perceive 
are  necessary  ;  that  every  being  in  na- 
ture, under  the  circumstances  in  which 
it  is  placed  and  with  the  given  proper- 
ties it  possesses,  cannot  act  otherwise 
than  it  does. 

Necessity  is  the  constant  and  infalli- 
ble connexion  of  causes  with  their  ef- 
fects. Fire,  of  necessity,  consumes 
combustible  matter  placed  within  its 
sphere  of  action :  man,  of  necessity, 
desires,  either  that  which  really  is,  or 
appears  to  be  useful  to  his  welfare. 
Nature,  in  all  tne  phenomena  she  ex- 
hibits, necessarily  acts  after  her  own 
peculiar  essence :  all  the  beings  she 


31 

'  contains  necessarily  act  each  after  its 
individual  essence :  it  is  by  motion 
that  the  whole  has  relation  with  its 
parts,  and  these  with  the  whole :  it  is 
thus  that  in  the  universe  every  thing 
is  connected  ;  it  is  itself  but  an  im- 
mense chain  of  causes  and  effects, 
which  flow  without  ceasing  one  from 

I  the  other.     If  we  reflect  a  little,   we 

|  shall  be  obliged  to  acknowledge,  that 
every  thing  we  see  is  necessary  ;  that 
it  cannot  be  otherwise  than  it  is  ;  that 
all  the  beings  we  behold,  as  well  as 
those  which  escape  our  sight,  act  by 
certain  and  invariable  laws.  Accord- 
ing to  these  laws  heavy  bodies  fall, 
light  bodies  rise ;  analogous  substances 
attract  each  other  ;  beings  tend  to  con- 
serve themselves  ;  man  cherishes  him- 
self; loves  that  which  he  thinks  advan 
tageous,  detests  that  which  he  has  an 
idea  may  prove  unfavourable  to  him. 
In  fine,  we  are  obliged  to  admit  that 
there  can  be  no  independent  energy — 
no  isolated  cause — no  detached  action, 
in  a  nature  where  all  the  beings  are  in 
a  reciprocity  of  action — who  without 
interruption  mutually  impel  and  resist 

|  each  other — who  is  herself  nothing 
more  than  an  eternal  circle  of  motion 
given  and  received  according  to  ne- 
cessary laws. 

Two  examples  will  serve  to  throw 
the  principle  here  laid  down,  into  light 
— one  shall  be  taken  from  physics,  the 
other  from  morals. 

In  a  whirlwind  of  dust,  raised  by  the 
impetuous  elements,  confused  as  it  ap- 
pears to  our  eyes ;  in  the  most  fright- 
ful tempest,  excited  by  contrary  winds, 
when  the  waves  roll  high  as  moun- 
tains ;  there  is  not  a  single  particle  of 
dust,  or  drop  of  water,  that  has  been 
placed  by  chance ;  that  has  not  a  suf- 
ficient cause  for  occupying  the  place 
where  it  is  found  ;  that  does  not,  in 
the  most  rigorous  sense  of  the  word, 
act  after  the  manner  in  which  it  ought 
to  act ;  that  is,  according  to  its  own 
peculiar  essence,  and  that  of  the  beings 
from  whom  it  receives  impulse.  A 
geometrician,  who  exactly  knew  the 
different  energies  acting  in  each  case, 
with  the  properties  of  the  particles 
moved,  could  demonstrate,  that,  after 
the  causes  given,  each  particle  acted 
precisely  as  it  ought  to  act,  and  that  it 
could  not  have  acted  otherwise  than  it 
did. 


32 


OF  THE  LAWS  OF  MOTION. 


In  those  terrible  convulsions  that  I 
sometimes  agitate  political  societies, 
shake  their  foundations,  and  frequent- 
ly produce  the  overthrow  of  an  empire 
— there  is  not  a  single  action,  a  single 
word,  a  single  thought,  a  single  will,  a 
single  passion  in  the  agents,  whether 
they  act  as  destroyers  or  as  victims, 
that  is  not  the  necessary  result  of  the 
causes  operating  ;  that  does  not  act  as 
of  necessity  it  must  act  from  the  pecu- 
liar situation  these  agents  occupy  in 
the  moral  whirlwind.  This  could  be 
evidently  proved  by  an  understanding 
capacitated  to  seize  and  to  rate  all  the 
actions  and  reactions  of  the  minds  and 
bodies  of  those  who  contributed  to  the 
revolution.  x 

In  fact,  if  all  be  connected  in  nature; 
if  all  motion  be  produced  the  one  from 
the  other,  notwithstanding  their  secret 
communications  frequently  elude  our 
sight ;  we  ought  to  feel  convinced  that 
there  is  no  cause,  however  minute, 
however  remote,  that  does  not  some- 
times produce  the  greatest'  and  the 
most  immediate  effects  on  man.  It 
may  perhaps  be  in  the  arid  plains  of 
Lybia,  that  are  amassed  the  first  ele- 
ments of  a  storm  or  tempest,  which, 
borne  by  the  winds,  approximate  our 
climate,  render  our  atmosphere  dense, 
which  operating  on  the  temperament, 
may  influence  the  passions  of  a  man 
whose  circumstances  shall  have  capa- 
citated him  to  influence  many  others, 
and  who  shall  decide  after  his  will  the 
fate  of  many  nations. 

Man,  in  fact,  finds  himself  in  nature, 
and  makes  a  part  of  it :  he  acts  accord- 
ing to  laws  which  are  peculiar  to 
him ;  he  receives,  in  a  manner  more  or 
less  distinct,  the  action,  the  impulse  of 
the  beings  who  surround  him;  who 
themselves  act  after  laws  that  are  pe- 
culiar to  their  essence.  It  is  thus  that 
he  is  variously  modified ;  but  his  ac- 
tions are  always  the  result  of  his  own 
peculiar  energy,  and  that  of  the  beings 
who  act  upon  him,  and  by  whom  he  is 
modified.  This  is  what  gives  such 
variety  to  his  determinations ;  what 
frequently  produces  such  contradiction 
in  his  thoughts,  his  opinions,  his  will, 
his  actions ;  in  short,  that  motion, 
whether  concealed  or  visible,  by  which 
he  is  agitated.  We  shall  have  occa- 
sion, in  the  sequel,  to  place  this  truth, 
at  present  so  much  contested,  in  a 


broader  light :  it  will  be  sufficient  for 
our  present  purpose  to  prove,  generally, 
that  every  thing  in  nature  is  necessary, 
that  nothing  to  be  found  in  it  can  act 
otherwise  than  it  does. 

It  is  motion  alternately  communica- 
ted and  received,  that  establishes  the 
connexion  and  the  relation  between  the 
different  orders  of  beings :  when  they 
are  in  the  sphere  of  reciprocal  action, 
attraction  approximates  them  ;  repul- 
sion dissolves  and  separates  them  ;  the 
one  conserves  and  strengthens  them  ; 
the  other  enfeebles  and  destroys  them. 
Once  combined,  they  have  a  tendency 
to  preserve  themselves  in  that  mode  of 
existence,  by  virtue  of  their  inert 
force :  in  this  they  cannot  succeed, 
because  they  are  exposed  to  the  con- 
tinual influence  of  all  other  beings  who 
act  upon  them  perpetually  and  in  suc- 
cession :  their  change  of  form,  their 
dissolution  is  requisite  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  nature  herself:  this  is  the  sole 
end  we  are  able  to  assign  her ;  to 
which  we  see  her  tend  incessantly  ; 
which  she  follows  without  interruption 
by  the  destruction  and  reproduction  of 
all  subordinate  beings,  who  are  obliged 
to  submit  to  her  laws,  and  to  concur, 
by  their  mode  of  action,  to  the  main- 
tenance of  her  active  existence,  so  es- 
sentially requisite  to  the  GREAT  WHOLE. 

Thus,  each  being  is  an  individual, 
who,  in  the  great  family,  executes  the 
necessary  task  assigned  to  him.  All 
bodies  act  according  to  laws  inherent 
in  their  peculiar  essence,  without  the 
capability  to  swerve,  even  for  a  single 
instant,  from  those  according  to  which 
Nature  herself  acts.  This  is  the  cen- 
tral power,  to  which  all  other  powers, 
all  other  essences,  all  other  energies, 
are  submitted ;  she  regulates  the  mo- 
tion of  beings  ;  by  the  necessity  of  her 
own  peculiar  essence,  she  makes  them 
concur  by  various  modes  to  the  general 
plan  :  this  plan  appears  to  be  nothing 
more  than  the  life,  action,  and  mainte- 
nance of  the  whole,  by  the  continual 
change  of  its  parts.  This  object  she 
obtains  in  removing  them  one  by  the 
other :  by  that  which  establishes,  and 
by  that  which  destroys  the  relation 
subsisting  between  them  ;  by  that 
which  gives  them,  and  by  that  which 
deprives  them  of  their  forms,  combina- 
tions, proportions,  qualities,  according 
to  which  they  act  for  a  time,  and  after 


OF  ORDER  AND  CONFUSION. 


33 


a  given  mode ;  these  are  afterwards 
taken  from  them,  to  make  them  act 
after  a  different  manner.  It  is  thus 
that  nature  makes  them  expand  and 
change,  grow  and  decline,  augment 
and  diminish,  approximate  and  remove, 
forms  them  and  destroys  them,  accord- 
ing as  she  finds  it  requisite  to  maintain 
the  .whole,  towards  the  conservation 
of  which  this  nature  is  herself  essen- 
tially necessitated  to  have  a  tendency. 
This  irresistible  power,  this  univer- 
sal necessity,  this  general  energy,  is, 
then,  only  a  consequence  of  the  nature 
of  things,  by  virtue  of  which  every 
thing  acts  without  intermission,  after 
constant  and  immutable  laws ;  these 
laws  not  varying  more  for  the  whole, 
than  for  the  beings  of  which  it  is 
composed.  Nature  is  an  active,  liv- 
ing whole,  whose  parts  necessarily 
concur,  and  that  without  their  own 
knowledge,  to  maintain  activity,  life, 
and  existence.  Nature  acts"  and  ex- 
ists necessarily:  all  that  she  contains 
necessarily  conspires  to  perpetuate  her 
active  existence.* 


*  This  was  the  decided  opinion  of  Plato, 
who  says,  "  Matter  and  necessity  are  the 
same  tiling;  lifts  necessity  is  the  mother  of 
the  world.  In  point  of  fact  we  cannot  go 
beyond  this  aphorism,  Matter  acts  because  it 
exists,  and  exists  to  act.  If  it  be  inquired 
how,  or  why,  matter  exists?  We  answer, 
we  know  not :  but  reasoning  by  analogy  of 
what  we  do  not  know  by  that  which  we  do, 
we  are  of  opinion  it  exists  necessarily,  or  be- 
cause it  contains  within  itself  a  sufficient  rea- 
son for  its  existence.  In  supposing  it  to  be 
created  or  produced  by  a  being  distinguished 
from  it,  or  less  known  than  itself,  we  must 
still  admit  that  this  being  is  necessary,  and 
includes, a  sufficient  reason  for  his  own  exist- 
ence. We  have  not  then  removed  any  of  the 
difficulty,  we  have  not  thrown  a  clearer  light 
on  the  subject,  we  have  not  advanced  a 
single  step;  we  have  simply  laid  aside  an 
agent  of  which  we  know  some  of  the  proper- 
ties, to  have  recourse  to  a  power  of  which  it 
is  utterly  impossible  we  can  form  any  distinct 
idea,  and  whose  existence  cannot  be  demon- 
strated. As  therefore  these  must  be  at  best 
but  speculative  points  of  belief,  which  each  in- 
dividual, by  reason  of  its. obscurity,  may  con- 
template with  different  optics  and  under  vari- 
ous aspects ;  they  surely  ought  to  be  left  free 
for  each  to  judge  after  his  own  fashion :  the 
Deist  can  .have  no  just  cause  'of  enmity 
against  the  Atheist  for  his  want  of  faith ;  and 
the  numerous  sects  of  each  of  the  various 
persuasions  spread  over  the  face  of  the  earth 
ought  to  make  it  a  creed,  to  look  with  an  eye 
of  complacency  on  the  deviation  of  the  other ; 
and  rest  upon  that  great  moral  axiom,  which 
No.  II.— 5 


We  shall  see  in  the  sequel,  how 
much  man's  imagination  has  laboured 
to  form  an  idea  of  the  energies  of  that 
nature  he  has  personified  and  distin- 
guished from  herself:  in  short,  we  shall 
examine  some  of  the  ridiculous  and 
pernicious  inventions  which  for  want 
of  understanding  nature,  have  been 
imagined  to  impede  her  course,  to  sus- 
pend her  eternal  laws,  to  place  obsta- 
cles to  the  necessity  of  things. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Of  Order  and  Confusion— Of  Intelligence— 
Of  Chance. 

THE  observation  of  the  necessary, 
regular,  and  periodical  motion  in  the 
universe,  generated  in  the  mind  of  man  • 
the  idea  of  order.  This  term,  in  its 
primitive  signification,  represents  to 
him  nothing  more  than  a  mode  of  con- 
sidering, a  facility  of  perceiving,  to- 
gether and  separately,  the  different  re- 
lations of  a  whole,  in  which  is  dis- 
covered by  its  manner  of  existing  and 
acting,  a  certain  affinity  or  conformity 
with  his  own.  Man,  in  extending  this 
idea  to  the  universe,  carried  with  him 
those  methods  of  considering  things 
Avhich  are  peculiar  to  himself:  he  has 
consequently  supposed  there  really  ex- 
isted m  nature  affinities  and  relations, 
which  he  classed  under  the  name  of 
order;  and  others,  which  appeared  to 
him  not  to  conform  to  those  Avhich  he 
has  ranked  under  the  term  confusion. 

It  is  easy  to  comprehend  that  this 
idea  of  order  and  confusion  can  have 
no  absolute  existence  in  nature,  where 
every  thing  is  necessary ;  Avhere  the 
whole  follows  constant  and  invariable 
laws ;  and  which  oblige  each  being,  in 
every  moment  of  its  duration,  to  sub- 
mit to  other  laws  which  themselves 
flow  from  its  own  peculiar  mode  of  ex- 
istence. It  is,  therefore,  in  his  imag- 
ination alone  man  finds  the  model  of 
that  Avhich  he  terms  order,  or  confu- 
sion, which,  like  all  his  abstract,  meta- 
physical ideas,  supposes  nothing  be- 

is  strictly  conformable  to  nature,  which  con- 
tains the  nucleus  of  man's  happiness — "  Do 
not  unto  another,  that  -which  you  do  not  wish 
another  should  do  unto  you ;"  for  it  is  evident, 
according  to  their  own  doctrines,  that  out  of 
all  their  multifarious  systems,  one  only  can 
be  right. 


34 


OF    ORDER  AND   CONFUSION. 


yond  his  reach.  Order,  however,  is 
never  more  than  the  faculty  of  conform- 
ing himself  with  the  beings  by  whom 
he  is  environed,  or  with  the  whole  of 
which  he  forms  a  part. 

Nevertheless,  if  the  idea  of  order  be 
applied  to  nature,  it  will  be  found  to  be 
nothing  but  a  series  of  action,  or  mo- 
tion, which  man  judges  to  conspire  to 
one  common  end.  Thus,  in  a  body 
that  moves,  order  is  the  chain  of  action, 
the  series  of  motion  proper  to  Consti- 
tute it  what  it  is,  and  to  maintain  it  in 
its  actual  state.  Order,  relatively  to 
the  whole  of  nature,  is  the  concate- 
nation of  causes  and  effects  necessary 
to  her  active  existence,  and  to  the 
maintaining  her  eternally  together; 
but,  as  it  has  been  proved  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  every  individual  being 
is  obliged  to  concur  to  this  end  in  the 
different  ranks  they  occupy ;  from 
whence  it  is  a  necessary  deduction, 
that  what  is  called  the  order  of  nature, 
can  never  be  more  than  a  certain  man- 
ner of  considering  the  necessity  of 
things,  to  which  all,  of  which  man  has 
any  knowledge,  is  submitted.  That 
which  is  styled  confusion,  is  only  a  re- 
lative term  used  to  designate  that  series 
of  necessary  action,  that  chain  of  re- 
quisite motion,  by  which  an  individual 
being  is  necessarily  changed  or  dis- 
turbed in  its  mode  of  existence,  and 
by  which  it  is  instantaneously  obliged 
to  alter  its  manner  of  action :  but  no 
one  of  these  actions,  no  part  of  this 
motion,  is  capable,  even  for  a  single 
instant,  of  contradicting  or  deranging 
the  general  order  of  nature,  from  which 
all  beings  derive  their  existence,  their 
properties,  the  motion  peculiar  to  each. 

What  is  termed  confusion  in  a  being, 
is  nothing  more  than  its  passage  into  a 
new  class,  a  new  mode  of  existence, 
which  necessarily  carries  with  it  a  new 
series  of  action,  a  new  chain  of  motion, 
different  from  that  of  which  this  being 
found  itself  susceptible  in  the  preceding 
rank  it  occupied.  That  which  is  called 
order  in  nature,  is  a  mode  of  existence, 
or  a  disposition  of  its  particles  strictly 
necessary.  In  every  other  assemblage 
of  causes  and  effects,  or  of  worlds,  as 
well  as  in  that  which  we  inhabit,  some 
sort  of  arrangement,  some  kind  of 
order,  would  necessarily  be  establish- 
ed. Suppose  the  most  discordant  and 
the  most  heterogeneous  substances 


were  put  into  activity ;  by  a  concatena- 
tion of  necessary  phenomena  they 
would  form  amongst  themselves  a  com- 
plete order,  a  perfect  arrangement  of 
some  sort.  This  is  the  true  notion  of 
a  property  which  may  be  denned  an 
aptitude  to  constitute  a  being  such  as 
it  is  actually  found,  such  as  it  is,  with 
respect  to  the  whole  of  which  it  makes 
a  part. 

Thus,  I  repeat,  order  is  nothing  but 
necessity,  considered  relatively  to  the 
series  of  actions,  or  the  connected  chain 
of  causes  and  effects  that  it  produces 
in  the  universe.  What  is,  in  fact,  the 
motion  in  our  planetary  system,  the 
only  one  of  which  man  has  any  distinct 
idea,  but  order ;  but  a  series  of  phe- 
nomena, operated  according  to  neces- 
sary laws,  regulating  the  bodies  of 
which  it  is  composed  1  In  conformity 
to  these  laws,  ,the  sun  occupies  the 
centre;  the  planets  gravitate  towards 
it,  and  describe  round  it,  in  regulated 
periods,  continual  revolutions :  the  sa- 
tellites of  these  planets  gravitate  to- 
wards those  which  are  in  the  centre 
of  their  sphere  of  action,  and  describe 
round  them  their  periodical  route.  One 
of  these  planets,  the  earth,  which  man 
inhabits,  turns  on  its  own  axis,  and  by 
the  various  aspects  which  its  annual 
revolution  obliges  it  to  present  to  the 
sun,  experiences  those  regular  varia- 
tions which  are  called  seasons.  By  a 
necessary  series  of  the  sun's  action 
upon  different  parts  of  this  globe,  all 
its  productions  undergo  vicissitudes : 
plants,  animals,  men,  are  in  a  sort  of 
lethargy  during  Winter :  in  Spring, 
these  beings  appear  to  reanimate,  to 
come,  as  it  were,  out  of  a  long  drowsi- 
ness. In  short,  the  mode  in  Avhich  the 
earth  receives  the  sun's  beams,  has  an 
influence  on  all  its  productions ;  these 
rays,  when  darted  obliquely,  do  not  act 
in  the  same  manner  as  when  they  fall 
perpendicularly ;  their  periodical  ab- 
sence, caused  by  the  revolution  of  this 
sphere  on  itself,  produces  night  and 
day.  In  all  this,  however,  man  never 
witnesses  more  than  necessary  effects, 
flowing  from  the  essence  of  things, 
which,  whilst  that  shall  remain  the 
same,  can  never  be  contradicted.  These 
effects  are  owing  to  gravitation,  attrac-  * 
tion,  centrifugal  power,  &c.* 


*  Centrifugal  force  is  a  philosophical  term, 
used  to  describe  that  force  by  which  all  bodies 


OF  ORDER  AND  CONFUSION. 


35 


On  the  other  hand,  this  order,  which 
man  admires  as  a  supernatural  effect, 
is  sometimes  disturbed  or  changed  into 
what  he  calls  confusion:  this  confusion 
itself  is,  however,  always  a  necessary 
consequence  of  the  laws  of  nature,  in 
which  it  is  requisite  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  whole  that  some  of  her  parts 
should  be  deranged,  and  thrown  out  of 
the  ordinary  course.  It  is  thus  comets 
present  themselves  so  unexpectedly  to 
man's  wondering  eyes ;  their  eccentric 
motion  disturbs  the  tranq'uillity  of  his 
planetary  system ;  they  excite  the  ter- 
rour  of  the  uninformed,  to  whom  every 
thing  unusual  is  marvellous.  The  natu- 
ral philosopher  himself  conjectures  that, 
in  former  ages,  these  comets  have  over- 
thrown the  surface  of  this  mundane 
ball,  and  caused  great  revolutions  on 
the  earth.  Independent  of  this  extra- 
ordinary confusion,  he  is  exposed  to 
others  more  familiar  to  him :  sometimes 
the  seasons  appear  to  have  usurped 
each  other's  place — to  have  quitted  their 
regular  order;  sometimes  the  discordant 
elements  seem  to  dispute  among  them- 
selves the  dominion  of  the  world  ;  the 
sea  bursts  its  limits ;  the  solid  earth  is 
shaken,  is  rent  asunder ;  mountains  are 
in  a  state  of  conflagration ;  pestilential 
diseases  destroy  men,  sweep  off  ani- 
mals ;  sterility  desolates  a  country ; 
then  affrighted  man  utters  piercing 
cries,  offers  up  his  prayers  to  recall 
order,  and  tremblingly  raises  his  hands 
towards  the  Being  he  supposes  to  be 
the  author  of  all  these  calamities :  and 
yet,  the  whole  of  this  afflicting  confu- 
sion are  necessary  effects,  produced  by 
natural  causes,  which  act  according  to 
fixed,  to  permanent  laws,  determined 
by  their  own  peculiar  essence,  and  the 
universal  essence  of  nature,  in  which 
every  thing  must  necessarily  be  changed' 
be  moved,  be  dissolved;  where  that 
which  is  called  order  must  sometimes 
be  disturbed,  and  be  altered  into  a  new 
mode  of  existence,  which,  to  his  mind, 
appears  confusion. 

What  is  called  the  confusion  of 
nature,  has  no  existence :  man  finds 
order  in  every  thing  that  is  conformable 
to  his  own  mode  of  being;  confusion 
in  every  thing  by  which  it  is  opposed : 

which  move  round  any  other  body  in  a  circle 
or  an  ellipsis,  do  endeavour  to  fly  off  from  the 
axis  of  their  motion  in  a  tangent  to  the  pe- 
riphery or  circumference  of  iu 


nevertheless,  in  nature  all  is  in  order, 
because  none  of  her  parts  are  ever  able 
to  emancipate  themselves  from  those 
invariable  and  necessary  rules,  which 
flow  from  their  respective  essences : 
there  is  not,  there  cannot  be,  oonfusion 
in  a  whole,  to  the  maintenance  of  which 
what  is  called  confusion  is  absolutely 
requisite ;  of  which  the  general  course 
can  never  be  deranged  where  all  the 
effects  produced  are  the  consequence  of 
natural  causes,  that,  under  the  circum- 
stances in  which  they  are  placed,  act 
only  as  they  infallibly  are  obliged  to  act. 

It  thus  follows  that  there  can  be  nei- 
ther monsters  nor  prodigies,  wonders 
nor  miracles  in  nature :  those  which 
are  designated  as  monsters,  are  certain 
combinations  with  which  the  eyes  of 
man  are  not  familiarized,  but  which 
are  not  less  the  necessary  effects  of 
natural  causes..  Those  which  he  terms 
prodigies,  wonders,  or  supernatural 
effects,  are  phenomena  of  nature  with 
whose  mode  of  action  he  is  unac- 
quainted— of  which  his  ignorance  does 
not  permit  him  to  ascertain  the  princi- 
ples— whose  causes  he  cannot  trace,  but 
which  his  heated  imagination  makes  him 
foolishly  attribute  to  fictitious  causes, 
which,  like  the  idea  of  order,  have  no 
existence  but  in  himself;  for,  out  of 
nature,  none  of  these  things  can  have 
existence. 

As  for  those  effects,  which  are  called 
miracles,  that  is  to  say,  contrary  to  the 
immutable  laws  of  nature,  such  things 
are  impossible ;  because  nothing  can 
for  an  instant  suspend  the  necessary 
course  of  beings,  without  arresting  the 
entire  of  nature,  and  disturbing  her  in 
her  tendency.  There  have  neither  been 
wonders  nor  miracles  in  nature,  except 
for  those  who  have  not  sufficiently 
studied  this  nature,  and  who  conse- 
quently do  not  feel  that  her  laws  can 
never  be  contradicted,  even  in  the 
minutest  of  her  parts,  without  the 
whole  being  annihilated,  or  at  least, 
without  changing  her  essence,  or  her 
mode  of  action.* 


*  A  miracle,  according  to  some  metaphysi- 
cians, is  an  effect  produced  by  a  power  not  to 
be  found  in  nature. — Miraculum  yocainus 
effcctum  qui  nullas  sui  vires  sufficientes  in 
natura  agnoscit. — See  Bilftnger,  De  Deo, 
Animo  et  Mundo.  From  this  it  has  been 
concluded  that  the  cause  must  be  looked  for 
beyond  or  out  of  nature ;  but  reason  bids  us 
not  to  recur  to  supernatural  causes,  to  explain 


36 


OF  ORDER  AND  CONFUSION. 


Order  and  confusion,  then,  are  only 
relative  terms,  by  which  man  designates 
the  state  in  which  particular  beings  find 
themselves:  He  says,  a  being  is  in 
order  when  all  the  motion  it  undergoes 
conspires  to  favour  its  tendency  to  self- 
preservation,  and  is  conducive  to  the 
maintenance  of  its  actual  existence; 
that  it  is  in  confusion,  when  the  causes 
which  move  it  disturb  the  harmony  of 
its  existence,  or  have  a  tendency  to 
destroy  the  equilibrium  necessary  to 
the  conservation  of  its  actual  state. 
Nevertheless,  confusion,  as  we  have 
shown,  is  nothing  but  the  passage  of  a 
being  into  a  new  order;  the  more  rapid 
the  progress,  the  greater  the  confusion 
for  the  being  that  is  submitted  to  it : 
that  which  conducts  man  to  what  is 
called  death,  is,  for  him,  the  greatest 
of  all  possible  confusion.  Yet  this 
death  is  nothing  more  than  a  passage 
into  a  new  mode  of  existence :  it  is  in 
the  order  of  nature. 

The  human  body  is  said  to  be  in 
order,  when  its  various  component  parts 
act  in  that  mode  from  which  results  the 
conservation  of  the  whole,  which  is  the 
end  of  his  actual  existence.*  He  is  said 
to  be  in  health,  when  the  fluids  and 
solids  of  his  body  concur  towards  this 
end.  He  is  said  to  be  in  confusion,  or 
in  ill  health,  whenever  this  tendency 
is  disturbed  ;  when  any  of  the  con- 
stituent parts  of  his  body  cease  to  con- 
cur to  his  preservation,  or  to  fulfil  his 
peculiar  functions.  This  it  is  that  hap- 
pens in  a  state  of  sickness,  in  which, 
however,  the  motion  excited  in  the 
human  machine  is  as  necessary,  is 
regulated  by  laws  as  certain,  as  natu- 
ral, as  invariable,  as  that  which  concurs 
to  produce  health.  Sickness  merely 
produces  in  him  a  new  order  of  motion, 
a  new  series  of  action,  a  new  chain  of 
things.  Man  dies :  to  us  this  appears  the 
greatest  confusion  he  can  experience ; 
his  body  is  no  longer  what  it  was — its 
parts  cease  to  concur  to  the  same  end — 
his  blood  has  lost  its  circulation — he  is 
deprived  of  feeling — his  ideas  have 

the  phenomena  we  behold,  before  we  have 
become  fully  acquainted  with  natural  causes — 
in  other  words,  with  the  powers  and  capabili- 
ties which  nature  herself  contains. 

*  In  other  words,  when  all  the  impulse  he 
receives,  all  the  motion  he  communicates,  tends 
to  preserve  his  health  and  to  render  him  happy, 
by  promoting  the  happiness  of  his  fellow  men. 


vanished — he  thinks  no  more — his  de- 
sires have  fled— -death  is  the  epoch,  is 
the  cessation  of  his  human  existence. — 
His  frame  becomes  an  inanimate  mass 
by  the  substraction  of  those  principles 
by  which  it  was  anhriated;  its  tendency 
has  received  a  new  direction,  and  the 
motion  excited  in  its  ruins  conspires  to 
a  new  end.  To  that  motion,  the  har- 
mony of  which  produced  life,  sentiment, 
thought,  passions,  and  health,  succeeds 
a  series  of  motion  of  another  species, 
which,  nevertheless^  follows  laws  as 
necessary  as  the  first :  all  the  part*  of 
the  dead  man  conspire  to  produce  what 
is  called  dissolution,  fermentation,  pu- 
trefaction ;  and  these  new  modes  of 
being,  of  acting,  are  just  as  natural  to 
man,  reduced  to  this  state,  as  sensibility, 
thought,  the  periodical  motion  of  the 
blood,  &c.  were  to  the  living  man :  his 
essence  having  changed,  his  mode  of 
action  can  no  longed  be  the  same.  To 
that  regulated  motion,  to  that  necessary 
action,  which  conspired  to  the  produc- 
tion of  life,  succeeds  that  determinate 
motion,  that  series  of  action,  which 
concur  to  produce  the  dissolution  of 
the  dead  carcass,  the  dispersion  of  its 
parts,  and  the  formation  of  new  combi- 
nations, from  which  result  new  beings : 
and  this,  as  we  have  before  seen,  is  the 
immutable  order  of  ever-active  nature.! 
It  cannot,  then,  be  too  often  repeated, 
that,  relatively  to  the  great  whole,  all 
the  motion  of  beings,  all  their  modes  of 
action,  can  never  be  but  in  order,  that 
is  to  say,  are  always  conformable  to 
nature :  that  in  all  the  stages  through 
which  beings  are  obliged  to  pass,  they 
invariably  act  after  a  mode  necessarily 
subordinate  to  the  universal  whole. 
Nay,  each  individual  being  always 
acts  in  order ;  all  its  actions,  the  whole 
system  of  its  motion,  are  the  necessary 
consequence  of  its  peculiar  mode  of 
existence,  whether  that  be  momentary 


t  "  We  have  accustomed  ourselves  to  think," 
says  an  anonymous  author,  "  that  life  is  the 
contrary  of  death ;  and  this  appearing  to  us 
under  the  idea  of  absolute  destruction,  we  have 
been  eager  at  least  to  exempt  the  soul  from  it, 
as  if  the  soul,  or  mind,  was  essentially  any 
thing  else  but  the  result  of  life,  whose  opposites 
are  animate  and  inanimate.  Death  is  so  little 
opposed  to  life,  that  it  is  the  principle  of  it. 
From  the  body  of  a  single  animal  that  ceases 
to  live,  a  thousand  other  living  beings  are 
formed."  See  Miscellaneous  Dissertations  -. 
Amsterdam.  1740  pp.  252,  253. 


OP  ORDER_AND  CONFUSION. 


or  durable.  Order,  in  political  society, 
is  the  effect  of  a  necessary  series  of 
ideas,  of  wills,  of  actions,  in  those  who 
compose  it,  whose  movements  are  regu- 
lated in  a  manner  either  calculated  to 
maintain  its  indivisibility,  or  to  hasten 
its  dissolution.  Man  constituted  or 
modified  in  the  manner  we  term  vir- 
,  tuous,  acts  necessarily  in  that  mode 
from  whence  results  the  welfare  of  his 
associates :  the  man  we  style  wicked, 
acts  necessarily  in  that  mode  from 
whence  springs  the  misery  of- his  fel- 
lows: his  nature  and  his  modification 
being  essentially  different,  he  must 
necessarily  act  after  a  different  mode : 
his  individual  order  is  at  variance,  but 
his  relative  order  is  complete :  it  is 
equally  the  essence  of  the  one  to  pro- 
mote happiness,  as  it  is  of  the  other  to 
induce  misery. 

Thus  order  and  confusion  in  indi- 
vidual beings,  are  nothing  more  than 
the  manner  of  man's  considering  the 
natural  and  necessary  effects  Avhich 
they  produce  relatively  to  himself.  He 
fears  the  wicked  man ;  he  says  that  he 
will  carry  confusion  into  society,  be- 
cause he  disturbs  its  tendency ;  because 
he  places  obstacles  to  its  happiness. 
He  avoids  a  falling  stone,  because  it 
will  derange  in  him  the  order  necessary 
to  his  conservation.  Nevertheless,  order 
and  confusion  are  always,  as  we  have 
shown,  consequences  equally  necessary 
to  either  the  transient  or  durable  state 
of  beings.  It  is  in  order  that  fire  burns, 
•because  it  is  of  its  essence  to  burn ; 
for  the  wicked  to  do  mischief,  because 
it  is  of  his  essence  to  do  mischief:  on 
the  other  hand,  it  is  in  order  that  an 
intelligent  being  should  remove  himself 
from  whatever  can  disturb  his  mode  of 
existence.  A  being,  whose  organization 
renders  him  sensible,  must,  in  virtue  of 
his  essence,  fly  from  every  thing  that 
can  injure  his  organs,  that  can  place 
his  existence  in  danger. 

Man  calls  those  beings  intelligent 
who  are  organized  after  his  own  man- 
ner, in  whom  he  sees  .faculties  proper 
for  their  preservation,  suitable  to  main- 
tain their  existence  in  the  order  that  is 
convenient  to  them,  enabling  them  to 
take  the  necessary  measures  towards 
this  end  with  a  consciousness  of  the 
motion  they  undergo.  From  hence  it 
will  be  perceived,  that  the  faculty  called 
intelligence,  consists  in  a  capability  toj 


act  conformably  to  a  known  end  in  the 
being  to  which  it  is  attributed.  He 
looks  upon  those  beings  as  deprived  of 
intelligence  in  whom  he  finds  no  con- 
formity with  himself ;  in  whom  he  dis- 
covers neither  the  same  organization, 
nor  the  same  faculties :  of  which  he 
knows  neither  the  essence,  the  end  to 
which  they  tend,  the  energies  by  which 
they  act,  nor  the  order  that  is  convenient 
to  them.  The  whole  cannot  have  a  dis- 
tinct end,  because  there  is  nothing  out 
of  itself  to  which  it  can  have  a  tendency. 
If  it  be  in  himself  that  he  arranges  the 
idea  of  order,  it  is  also  in  himself  that 
he  -draws  up  that  of  intelligence.  He 
refuses  to  ascribe  it  to  those  beings  who 
d6  not  act  after  his  own  manner :  he 
accords  it  to  all  those  whom  he  supposes 
to  act  like  himself:  the  latter  he  calls 
intelligent  agents ;  the  former  blind 
causes ;  that  is  to  say,  intelligent  agents 
who  act  by  CHANCE — a  word  void  of 
sense,  but  which  is  always  opposed  to 
that  of  intelligence,  without  attaching 
to  it  any  determinate  or  certain  idea.* 

In  fact,  he  attributes  to  chance  all 
those  effects  of  which  the  connexion 
they  have  with  their  causes  is  not  seen. 
Thus  man  uses  the  word  chance  to 
cover  his  ignorance  of  those  natural 
causes  which  produce  visible  effects, 
by  means  of  which  he  cannot  form  an 
idea ;  or  that  act  by  a  mode  of  which  he 
does  not  perceive  the  order ;  or  whose 
system  is  not  followed  by  actions  con- 
formable to  his  own.  As  soon  as  he 
sees,  or  believes  he  sees  the  order  of 
action,  he  attributes  this  order  to  an 
intelligence ;  which  is  nothing  more 
than  a  quality  borrowed  from  himself, 

*  We  always  compare  the  intelligence  of 
other  beings  with  our  own,  and  if  it  be  not  the 
same,  we  deny  its  existence,  which  is  a  very 
gross  errour ;  forj  although  a  being  may  appear 
deprived  of  our  own  intelligence,  ne  neverthe- 
less has  one  peculiar  to  his  organization,  which 
leads  him,  with  the  greatest  impulse  possible, 
towards  an  end  we  do  not  see;  and  all  beings, 
with  regard  to  the  end  Nature  proposes  to 
herself,  are  provided  with  that  degree  of  mtelli 
gence  necessary  to  obtain  it.  To  assume  that 
a  being  is  deprived  of  intelligence,  is  merely  to 
say  that  his  intelligence  is  not  like  ours,  and 
that  we  do  not  understand  it: — to  say  that  a 
being  acts  by  chance,  is  merely  to  confess  that 
we  do  not  see  its  end,  and  the  place  it  occupies 
in  the  universal  chain  of  existences.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  all  beings  are  possessed  of  intelli- 
gence, albeit  we  may  not  understand  it ;  and 
it  is  no  less  certain  that  all  beings  tend  to  ar 
end,  albeit  we  may  not  perceive  it. 


38 


OF  ORDER  AND  CONFUSION. 


from  his  own  peculiar  mode  of  action, 
and  from  the  manner  in  which  he  is 
himself  affected. 

Thus  an  intelligent  being  is  one 
who  thinks,  who  wills,  who  acts,  to 
compass  an  end.  If  so,  he  must  have 
organs  and  an  aim  conformable  to  those 
of  man :  therefore,  to  say  that  nature  is 
governed  by  an  intelligence,  is  to  affirm 
that  she  is  governed  by  a  being  fur- 
nished with  organs ;  seeing  that  with- 
out this  organic  construction  he  can 
neither  have  sensations,  perceptions, 
ideas,  thoughts,  will,  plan,  nor  self- 
understood  action. 

Man  always  makes  himself  the  cen- 
tre of  the  universe :  it  is  to  himself  that 
he  relates  all  he  beholds.  As  soon  as 
he  believes  he  discovers  a  mode  of  ac- 
tion that  has  a  conformity  with  his 
own,  or  some  phenomenon  that  in- 
terests his  feelings,  he  attributes  it  to  a 
cause  that  resembles  himself,  that  acts 
after  his  manner,  that  has  similar  fa- 
culties with  those  he  himself  possesses, 
whose  interests  are  like  his  own,  whose 
projects  are  in  unison  with,  and  have 
the  same  tendency  as  those  he  him- 
self indulges  :  in  short,  it  is  from  him- 
self, from  the  properties  which  actuate 
him,  that  he  forms  the  model  of  this 
cause.  It  is  thus  that  man  beholds  out 
of  his  own  species  nothing  but  beings 
•who  act  differently  from  himself;  yet, 
believes  that  he  remarks  in  nature  an 
order  analogous  to  his  own  peculiar 
ideas:  views,  conformable  to  those; 
which  he  himself  has.  He  imagines 
that  nature  is  governed  by  a  cause, 
whose  intelligence  is  conformable  to 
his  own ;  to  whom  he  ascribes  the 
honour  of  the  orjier  which  he  believes 
he  witnesses :  of  those  views  that  fall 
in  with  those  that  are  peculiar  to  him- 
self; of  an  aim  which  quadrates  with 
that  which  is  the  great  end  of  all  his 
own  actions.  It  is  true  that  man,  feel- 
ing his  incapability  to  produce  the  vast, 
the  multiplied  effects,  of  which  he  wit- 
nesses the  operation  when  contempla- 
ting the  universe,  was  under  the  ne- 
cessity of  making  a  distinction  between 
himself  and  the  cause  which  he  sup- 
posed to  be  the  author  of  such  stupen- 
dous effects ;  he  believed  he  removed 
every  difficulty  by  exaggerating  in  this 
cause  all  those  faculties  of  which  he 
was  himself  in  possession.  It  was 
thus,  and  by  degrees,  he  arrived  at 


forming  an  idea  of  that  intelligent  cause 
which  he  has  placed  above  nature  to 
preside  over  her  action,  and  to  give  her 
that  motion  of  which  he  has  chosen  to 
believe  she  was  in  herself  incapable. 
He  obstinately  persists  in  always  re- 
garding this  nature  as  a  heap  of  dead, 
inert,  formless  matter,  which  has  not 
within  itself  the  poAver  of  producing 
any  of  those  great  effects,  of  those  re- 
gular phenomena,  from  which  eman- 
ates what  he  styles  the  order  of  the 
universe.*  From  whence  it  may  be 
deduced,  that  it  is  for  want  of  being 
acquainted  with  the  powers  of  nature, 
with  the  properties  of  matter,  that  man 
has  multiplied  beings  without  necessi- 
ty :  that  he  has  supposed  the  universe, 
under  the  empire  of  an  intelligent 
cause,  of  which  he  is,  and  perhaps  al- 
ways will  be,  himself  the  model :  and 
he  only  rendered  this  cause  more  in- 
conceivable, when  he  extended  in  it 
his  own  faculties  too  much.  He  either 
annihilates,  or  renders  it  altogether  im- 
possible, when  he  would  attach  to  it 
incompatible  qualities,  which  he  is 
obliged  to  do  to  enable  him  to  account 
for  the  contradictory  and  disorderly 
effects  he  beholds  in  the  world.  In 
fact,  he  sees  confusion  in  the  world ; 
yet,  notwithstanding  this  confusion 
contradicts  the  plan,  the  power,  the 
wisdom,  the  bounty  of  this  intelligence, 
and  the  miraculous  order  which  he  as- 
cribes to  it,  he  says  the  extreme  beau- 
tiful arrangement  of  the  whole  obliges 
him  to  suppose  it  to  be  the  work  of  a 
sovereign  intelligence.! 

It  will,  no  doubt,  be  argued,  that  as 
nature  contains  and  produces  intelli- 
gent beings,  either  she  must  be  herself 


*  Anaxagoras  is  said  to  have  been  the  first 
who  supposed  the  universe  created  and  gov- 
erned by  an  intelligence .  Aristotle  reproaches 
him  with  having  made  an  automaton  of  this 
intelligence ;  that  is,  with  ascnbing  to  it  the 
production  of  things  only  when  he  was  at  a 
loss,  for  good  reasons,  to  account  for  their 
appearance. — See  Bayle's  Dictionary,  Art. 
Anaxagoras,  Note  E. 

t  Unable  to  reconcile  this  seeming  confu- 
sion with  the  benevolence  he  attaches  to  this 
cause,  he  had  recourse  to  another  effort  of  his 
imagination  ;  he  made  a  new  cause,  to  whom 
he  ascribed  all  the  evil,  all  the  misery,  result- 
ing from  this  confusion  :  still,  his  own  person 
served  for  the  model,  to  which  he  added  thosr 
deformities  which  he  had  learned  to  hold  in 
disesteem  :  in  multiplying  these  counter  01 
destroying  causes,  he  peopled  Pandemonium 


OF  MAX. 


intelligent,  or  else  she  must  be  govern- 
ed by  an  intelligent  cause.  We  reply, 
intelligence  is  a  faculty  peculiar  to  or- 
ganized beings,  that  is  to  say,  to  beings 
constituted  and  combined  after  a  de- 
terminate manner,  from  whence  results 
certain  modes  of  action,  which  are  de- 
signated under  various  names,  accord- 
ing to  the  different  effects  which  these 
beings  produce :  wine  has  not  the  pro- 
perties called  wit  and  courage ;  never- 
theless, it  is  sometimes  seen  that 'it 
communicates  those  qualities  to  men 
who  are  supposed  to  be  in  themselves 
entirely  devoid  of  them.  It  cannot  be 
said  that  nature  is  intelligent  after  the 
manner  of  any  one  of  the  beings  she 
contains  ;  but  she  can  produce  intelli- 
gent beings,  by  assembling  matter 
suitable  to  form  the  particular  organ- 
ization, from  whose  peculiar  modes  of 
action  will  result  the  faculty  called  in- 
telligence, who  shall  be  capable  of  pro- 
ducing those  effects  which  are  the  ne- 
cessary consequence  of  this  property. 
I  therefore  repeat,  that  to  have  intelli- 
gence," designs,  and  views,  it  is  requi- 
site to  have  ideas :  to  the  production 
of  ideas,  organs  or  senses  are  neces- 
sary: this  is  what  is  neither  said  of 
nature,  nor  of  the  causes  he  has  sup- 
posed to  preside  over  her  actions.  In 
short,  experience  proves  beyond  a 
doubt  that  matter,  which  is  regarded  as 
inert  and  dead,  assumes  sensible  action, 
intelligence,  and  life,  when  it  is  com- 
bined after  particular  modes. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  must 
be  concluded,  that  order  is  never  more 
than  the  necessary,  the  uniform  con- 
nexion of  causes  with  their  effects  ;  or 
that  series  of  action  which  flows  from 
Hie  peculiar  properties  of  beings  so 
long  as  they  remain  in  a  given  state — 
that  confusion  is  nothing  more  than 
the  change  of  this  state — that,  in  the 
universe,  all  is  necessarily  in  order; 
because  every  thing  acts  and  moves 
according  to  the  properties  of  the  beings 
it  contains — that,  in  nature,  there  can- 
not be  either  confusion,  or  real  evil, 
since  every  thing  follows  the  laws  of 
its  natural  existence — that  there  is 
neither  chance,  nor  any  thing  fortui- 
tous in  this  nature,  where  no  effect  is 
produced  without  a  sufficient  cause  ; 
where  all  causes  act  necessarily  ac- 
cording to  fixed,  to  certain  laws,  which 
are  themselves  dependant  on  the  esse  - 


tial  properties  of  these  causes,  as  well 
as  on  the  combination  or  modification 
which  constitutes  either  their  transi- 
tdry  or  permanent  state — that  intelli- 
gence is  a  mode  of  acting,  a  method 
of  existence,  natural  to  some  particular 
beings — that,  if  this  intelligence  should 
be  attributed  to  nature,  it  would  then 
be  nothing  more  than  the  faculty  of 
conserving  herself  in  active  existence 
by  necessary  means.  In  refusing  to 
nature  the  intelligence  he  himself  en- 
joys— in  rejecting  the  intelligent  cause 
which  is  supposed  to  be  the  contriver 
of  this  nature,  or  the  principle  of  that 
order  he  discovers  in  her  course,  noth- 
ing is  given  to  chance,  nothing  to  a 
blind  cause ;  but  every  thing  he  be- 
holds is  attributed  to  real,  to  known 
causes,  or  to  such  as  are  easy  of  com- 
prehension. All  that  exists  is  ac- 
knowledged to  be  a  consequence  of  the 
inherent  properties  of  eternal  matter, 
which,  by  contact,  by  blending,  by 
combination,  by  change  of  form,  pro- 
duces order  and  confusion,  and  all  those 
varieties  which  assail  his  sight — it  is 
himself  who  is  blind,  when  he  imagines 
blind  causes — man  only  manifested  his 
ignorance  of  the  powers  and  laws  of 
nature,  when  he  attributed  any  of  its 
effects  to  chance.  He  did  not  show  a 
more  enlightened  mind  when  he  as- 
cribed them  to  an  intelligence,  the  idea 
of  which  is  always  borrowed  from  him- 
self, but  which  is  never  in  conformity 
with  the  effects  which  he  attributes  to 
its  intervention — he  only  imagined 
words  to  supply  the  place  of  things, 
and  believed  he  understood  them  by 
thus  obscuring  ideas  which  he  never 
dared  either  define  or  analyze. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Of  Man — Of  his  Distinction  into  Moral  and 
Physical — Of  his  Origin. 

LET  us  now  apply  the  general  laws 
we  have  scrutinized,  to  those  beings  of 
nature  who  interest  us  the  most.  Let 
us  see  in  what  man  differs  from  the 
other  beings  by  which  he  is  surround- 
ed. Let  us  examine  if  he  has  not  cer- 
tain points  in  conformity  with  thfem 
that  oblige  him,  notwithstanding  the 
different  properties  they  respectively 
possess,  to  act  in  certain  respects  ac- 
cording to  the  universal  laws  to  which 


40 


OF   MAN. 


every  thing  is  submitted.  Finally,  let 
us  inquire  if  the  ideas  he  has  formed  of 
himself  in  meditating  on  his  own  pe- 
culiar mode  of  existence,  be  chimeri- 
cal, or  founded  in  reason. 

Man  occupies  a  place  amidst  that 
crowd,  that  multitude  of  beings,  o£. 
which  nature  is  the  assemblage.  His 
essence,  that  is  to  say,  the  peculiar 
manner  of  existence  by  which  he  is 
distinguished  from  other  beings,  ren- 
ders him  susceptible  of  various  modes 
of  action,  of  a  variety  of  motion,  some 
of  which  are  simple  and  visible,  others 
concealed  and  complicated.  His  life" 
itself  is  nothing  more  than  a  long  series, 
a  succession  of  necessary  and  con- 
nected motion,  which  operates  perpet- 
ual and  continual  changes  in  his  ma- 
chine ;  which  has  for  its  principle  either 
causes  contained  within  himself,  such 
as  blood,  nerves,  fibres,  flesh,  bones,  in 
short,  the  matter,  as  well  solid  as  fluid, 
of  which  his  body  is  composed — or 
those  exterior  causes,  which,  by  acting 
upon  him,  modify  him  diversely;  such 
as  the  air  with  which  he  is  encompass- 
ed, the  aliments  by  which  he  is  nourish- 
ed, and  all  those  objects  fromAvhich  he 
receives  any  impulse  whatever  by  the 
impression  they  make  on  his  senses. 

Man,  like  all  other  beings  in  nature, 
tends  to  his  own  preservation — he  ex- 
periences inert  force — he  gravitates 
upon  himself — he  is  attracted  by  ob- 
jects that  are  analogous,  and  repelled 
by  those  that  are  contrary  to  him — he 
seeks  after  some — he  flies  or  endeavours 
to  remove  himself  from  others.  It  is 
this  variety  of  action,  this  diversity  of 
modification  of  which  the  human  being 
is  susceptible,  that  has  been  designated 
under  such  different  names,  by  such 
varied  nomenclature.  It  will  be  ne- 
cessary, presently,  to  examine  these 
closely  and  in  detail. 

However  marvellous,  however  hid- 
den, however  complicated,  may  be  the 
modes  of  action  which  the  human 
frame  undergoes,  whether  interiorly  or 
exteriorly  ;  whatever  may  be,  or  ap- 
pear to  be  the  impulse  he  either  re- 
ceives or '  communicates,  examined 
closely,  it  will  be  found  that  all  his 
motion,  all  his  operations,  all  his 
changes,  all  his  various  states,  all  his 
revolutions,  are  constantly  regulated  by 
the  same  laws,  which  nature  has  pre- 
scribed to  all  the  beings  she  brings 


forth — which  she  develops — Avhich  she 
enriches  with  faculties — of  which  she 
increases  the  bulk — which  she  con- 
serves for  a  season — which  she  ends 
by  decomposing  or  destroying — thus 
obliging  them  to  change  their'  form. 

Man,  in  his  origin,  is  an  impercepti-  | 
ble  point,  a  speck,  of  which  the  parts 
are  without  form ;  of  which  the  mobili- 
ty, the  life,  escapes  his  senses ;  in 
short,  in  which  he  does  not  perceive 
any  sign  of  those  qualities  called  sen- 
timent, feeling,  thought,  intelligence, 
force,  reason,  &c.  Placed  in  the 
womb  suitable  to  his  expansion,  this 
point  unfolds,  extends,  increases  by 
the  continual  addition  of  matter  he  at- 
tracts that  is  analogous  to  his  being, 
which  consequently  assimilates  itself 
with  him.  Having  quitted  this  womb, 
so  appropriate  to  conserve  his  exist- 
ence, to  unfold  his  qualities,  to  strength- 
en his  habii ;  so  competent  to  give,  for 
a  season,  consistence  to  the  weak  rudi  • 
ments  of  his  frame  ;  he  becomes  adult : 
his  body  has  then  acquired  a  consider- 
able extension  of  bulk,  his  motion  is 
marked,  his  action  is  visible,  he  is  sen- 
sible in  all  his  parts ;  he  is  a  living,  an 
active  mass ;  that  is  to  say,  he  feels, 
thinks,  and  fulfils  the  functions  pecu- 
liar to  beings  of  his  species.  But  how" 
has  he  become  sensible?  Because  he 
has  been  by  degrees  nourished,  enlarg- 
ed, repaired  by  the  continual  attraction 
that  takes  place  within  himself  of  that 
kind  of  matter  which  is  pronounced 
inert,  insensible,  inanimate;  although 
continually  combining  itself  with  his 
machine,  of  which  it  forms  an  active 
whole,  that  is  living,  that  feels,  judges, 
reasons,  wills,  deliberates,  chooses, 
elects  ;  with  a  capability  of  labouring, 
more  or  less  efficaciously,  to  his  own 
individual  preservation  ;  that  is  to  say, 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  harmony  of 
his  natural  existence.  _J 

All  the  motion  and  changes  that  man 
experiences  in  the  course  of  his  life, 
whether  it  be  from  exterior  objects,  or 
from  those  substances  contained  with- 
in himself,  are  either  favourable  or 
prejudicial  to  his  existence ;  either 
maintain  its  order,  or  throw  it  into  con- 
fusion ;  are  either  in  conformity  with, 
or  repugnant  to  the  essential  tendency 
of  his  peculiar  mode  of  being.  He  is 
compelled  by  nature  to  approve  of  some, 
to  disapprove  of  others  ;  some  of  neces- 


OF  MAN. 


sity  render  him  happy,  others  contri- 
bute to  his  misery ;  some  become  the 
objects  of  his  most  ardent  desire,  others 
of  his  determined  aversion :  some  elicit 
his  confidence,  others  make  him  trem- 
ble with  fear. 

In  all  the  phenomena  man  presents, 
from  the  moment  he  quits  the  womb 
of  his  mother,  to  that  wherein  he  be- 
comes the  inhabitant  of  the  silent  tomb, 
he  perceives  nothing  but  a  succession 
of  necessary  causes  and  effects,  which 
are  strictly  conformable  to  those  laws 
common  to  all  the  beings  in  nature. 
All  his  modes  of  action — all  his  sensa- 
tions— all  his  ideas — all  his  passions — 
every  act  of  his  will — every  impulse  he 
either  gives  or  receives,  are  the  neces- 
sary consequences  of  his  own  peculiar 
properties,  and  those  which  he  finds  in 
the  various  beings  by  whom  he  is 
moved.  Every  thing  he  does — every 
thing  that  passes  within  himself,  are 
the  effects  of  inert  force — of  self-gravi- 
tation— of  the  attractive  or  repulsive 
powers  contained  in  his  machine — of 
the  tendency  he  has,  in  common  with 
other  beings,  to  his  own  individual 
preservation  ;  in  short',  of  that  energy 
Avhich  is  the  common  property  of  everv 
being  he  beholds.  Nature,  in  man^ 
does  nothing  more  than  show,  in  a  de- 
cided manner,  what  belongs  to  the  pe- 
culiar nature  by  which  he  is  distin- 
guished from  the  beings  of  a  different 
system  or  order. 

The  source  of  those  errours  into 
which  man  has  fallen  when  he  has 
contemplated  himself,  has  its  rise,  as 
will  presently  be  shown,  in  the  opinion 
he  has  entertained,  that  he  moved  by 
himself — that  he  always  acts  by  his 
own  natural  energy — that  in  his  actions, 
in  the  will  that  gave  him  impulse,  he 
was  independent  of  the  general  laws 
of  nature,  and  of  those  objects  which, 
frequently  without  his  knowledge,  and 
always  in  spite  of  him,  are,  in  obedience 
to  these  laws,  continually  acting  upon 
him.  If  he  had  examined  himself  at- 
tentively, he  must  have  acknowledged, 
that  none  of  the  motion  he  underwent 
was  spontaneous — he  must  have  dis- 
covered, that  even  his  birth  depended 
on  causes  wholly  out  of  the  reach  of 
his  own  powers — that  it  was  without 
his  own  consent  he  entered  into  the 
system  in  which  he  occupies  a  place — 
that,  from  the  moment  in  which  he  is 

No.  II.— 6 


born,  until  that  in  which  he  dies,  he  is 
continually  impelled  by  causes  which, 
in  spite  of  himself,  influence  his  frame, 
modify  his  existence,  dispose  of  his 
conduct.  Would  not  the  slightest  re- 
flection have  sufficed  to  prove  to  him, 
that  the  fluids  and  the  solids  of  which 
his  body  is  composed,  as  well  as  that 
concealed  mechanism,  which  he  be- 
lieves to  be  independent  of  exterior 
causes,  are,  in  fact,  perpetually  under 
the  influence  of  these  causes;  that 
without  them  he  would  find  himself  in 
a  total  incapacity  to  act?  Would  he 
not  have  seen,  that  his  temperament, 
his  constitution,  did  in  nowise  depend 
on  himself— that  his  passions  are  the 
necessary  consequence  of  this  tempera- 
ment— that  his  will  is  influenced — his 
actions  determined  by  these  passions ; 
and  consequently  by  opinions  which  he 
has  not  given  to  himself?  His  blood 
more  or  less  heated  or  abundant,  his 
nerves  more  or  less  braced,  his  fibres 
more  or  less  relaxed,  give  him  disposi- 
tions either  transitory  or  durable,  which 
are  at  every  moment  decisive  of  his 
ideas,  of  his  desires,  of  his  fears,  of  his 
motion,  whether  visible  or  concealed. 
And  the  state  in  which  he  finds  him- 
self, does  it  not  necessarily  depend  on 
the  air  which  surrounds  him  diversely 
modified ;  on  the  various  properties  of 
the  aliments  which  nourish  him ;  on 
the  secret  combinations  that  form  them- 
selves in  his  machine,  which  either  pre- 
serve its  order,  or  throw  it  into  confu- 
sion ?  In  short,  had  man  fairly  studied 
himself,  every  thing  must  have  con- 
vinced him,  that  in  every  moment  of 
his  duration,  he  was  nothing  more  than 
a  passive  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
necessity. 

Thus  it  must  appear,  that  where  all 
the  causes  are  linked  one  to  the  other, 
where  the  whole  forms  but  one  im- 
mense chain,  there  cannot  be  any  inde- 
pendent, any  isolated  energy  ;  any  de- 
tached power.  It  follows,  then,  that 
nature,  always  in  action,  marks  out  to 
man  each  point  of  the  line  he  is  bound 
to  describe.  It  is  nature  that  elaborates, 
that  combines  the  elements  of  which 
he  must  be  composed. — It  is  nature 
that  gives  him  his  being,  his  tendency, 
his  peculiar  mode  of  action. — It  is 
nature  that  develops  him,  expands  him, 
strengthens  him.  and  preserves  him  for 
a  season,  during  which  he  is  obliged  to 


OP  MAN 


fulfil  the  task  imposed  on  him. — It  is 
nature,  that  in  his  journey  through  life, 
strews  on  the  road  those  objects,  those 
events,  those  adventures,  that  modify 
him  in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  give  him 
impulses  which  are  sometimes  agree- 
able and  beneficial,  at  others  prejudicial 
and  disagreeable. — It  is  nature,  that  in 
giving  him  feeling,  has  endowed  him 
with  capacity  to  choose  the  means,  and 
to  take  those  methods  that  are  most 
conducive  to  his  conservation. — It  is 
nature,  who,  when  he  has  finished  bis 
career,  conducts  him  to  his  destruction, 
and  thus  obliges  him  to  undergo  the 
constant,  the  universal  law,  from  the 
operation  of  which  nothing  is  exempted. 
It  is  thus,  also,  motion  brings  man  forth 
out  of  the  womb,  sustains  him  for  a 
season,  and  at  length  destroys  him,  or 
obliges  him  to  return  into  the  bosom  of 
nature,  who  speedily  reproduces  him, 
scattered  under  an  infinity  of  forms,  in 
which  each  of  his  particles  will,  in  the 
same  manner,  run  over  again  the  differ- 
ent stages,  as  necessarily  as  the  whole 
had  before  run  over  those  of  his  pre- 
ceding existence. 

The  beings  of  the  human  species,  as 
well  as  all  other  beings,  are  susceptible 
of  two  sorts  of  motion :  the  one,  that  of 
the  mass,  by  which  an  entire  body,  or 
some  of  its  parts,  are  visibly  transferred 
from  one  place  to  another;  the  other, 
internal  and  concealed,  of  some  of 
which  man  is  sensible,  while  some 
takes  place  without  his  knowledge,  and 
is  not  even  to  be  guessed  at  but  by 
the  effect  it  outwardly  produces.  In  a 
machine  so  extremely  complex  as  man, 
formed  by  the  combination  of  such  a 
multiplicity  of  matter,  so  diversified  in 
its  properties,  so  different  in  its  propor- 
tions, so  varied  in  its  modes  of  action, 
the  motion  necessarily  becomes  of  the 
most  complicated  kind ;  its  dullness,  as 
well  as  its  rapidity,  frequently  escapes 
the  observation  of  those  themselves  in 
whom  it  takes  place. 

Let  us  not,  then,  be  surprised,  if  when 
man  would  account  to  himself  for  his 
existence,  for  his  manner  of  acting, 
finding  so  many  obstacles  to  encounter, 
he  invented  such  strange  hypotheses 
to  explain  the  concealed  spring  of  his 
machine — if  when  this  motion  appeared 
to  him  to  be  different  from  that  of  other 
bodies,  he  conceived  an  idea  that  he 
moved  and  acted  in  a  manner  altogether 


distinct  from  the  other  beings  in  nature. 
He  clearly  perceived  that  his  body,  as 
well  as  different  parts  of  it,  did  act; 
but,  frequently,  he  was  unable  to  dis- 
cover what  brought  them  into  action : 
he  then  conjectured  he  contained  within 
himself  a  moving  principle  distinguish- 
ed from  his  machine,  which  secretly 
gave  an  impulse  to  the  springs  which 
set  this  machine  in  motion ;  that  moved 
him  by  its  own  natural  energy ;  and 
that  consequently  he  acted  according  to 
laws  totally  distinct  from  those  which 
regulated  the  motion  of  other  beings. 
He  was  conscious  of  certain  internal 
motion  which  he  could  not  help  feeling ; 
but  how  could  he  conceive  that  this 
invisible  motion  was  so  frequently  com- 
petent to  produce  such  striking  effects  ? 
How  could  he  comprehend  that  a 
fugitive  idea,  an  imperceptible  act  of 
thought,  could  frequently  bring  his 
whole  being  into  trouble  and  confu- 
sion? He  fell  into  the  belief,  that  he 
perceived  within  himself  a  substance 
distinguished  from  that  self,  endowed 
with  a  secret  force,  in  which  he  sup- 
posed existed  qualities  distinctly  differ- 
ing from  those  of  either  the  risible 
causes  that  acted  on  his  organs,  or 
those  organs  themselves.  He  did  not 
sufficiently  understand,  that  the  primi- 
tive cause  which  makes  a  stone  fall,  or 
his  arm  move,  are  perhaps  as  difficult 
of  comprehension,  as  arduous  to  be 
explained,  as  those  internal  impulses 
of  which  his  thought  or  his  will  are 
the  effects.  Thus,  for  want  of  medi- 
tating nature — of  considering  her  under 
her  true  point  of  view — of  remarking 
the  conformity  and  noticing  the  simul- 
taneity of  the  motion  of  this  fancied 
motive-power  with  that  of  his  body 
and  of  his  material  organs — he  con- 
jectured he  was  not  only  a  distinct 
being,  but  that  he  was  set  apart,  with 
different  energies,  from  all  the  other 
beings  in  nature ;  that  he  was  of  a  more 
simple  essence,  having  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  any  thing  that  he  beheld.* 

*  "  We  must,"  says  an  anonymous  writer, 
"define  life,  before  we  can  reason  upon  the 
soul :  but  this  is  what  1  esteem  impossible, 
because  there  are  things  in  nature  so  simple 
that  imagination  cannot  divide  them,  nor  re- 
duce them  to  any  thing  more  simple  than 
themselves :  such  is  life,  whiteness,  and  light, 
which  we  have  not  been  able  to  define  but  by 
their  effects." — See  Miscellaneous  Disserta- 
tions, -printed  at  Amsterdam,  1740,  page  232. — 


OP  MAN. 


It  is  from  thence  his  notions  of  spi- 
rituality, immateriality,  immortality, 
have  successively  sprung ;  in  short,  all 
those  vague  unmeaning  words  he  has 
invented  by  degrees,  in  order  to  subtilize 
and  designate  the  attributes  of  the  un- 
known .  power  which  he  believes  he 
contains  within  himself,  and  which  he 
conjectures  to  be  the  concealed  prin- 
ciple of  all  his  visible  actions.*  To 
crown  the  bold  conjectures  he  ventured 
to  make  on  this  internal  motive-power, 
he  supposed  that  different  from  all  other 
beings,  even  from  the  body  that  served 
to  envelop  it,  it  was  not  bound  to  un- 
dergo dissolution ;  that  such  was  its 
perfect  simplicity,  that  it  could  not  be 
decomposed,  nor  even  change  its  form ; 
in  short,  that  it  was  by  its  essence 
exempted  from  those  revolutions  to 
which  he  saw  the  bocfy  subjected,  as 
well  as  all  the  compound  beings  with 
which  nature  is  filled. 

Thus  man  became  double ;  he  looked 
upon  himself  as  a  whole,  composed  by 
the  inconceivable  assemblage  of  two 
distinct  natures,  which  had  no  point  of 
analogy  between  themselves :  ^Tie  dis- 
tinguished two  substances  in  tiimself ; 
one  evidently  submitted  to  the  influence 
of  gross  beings,  composed  of  coarse 
inert  matter:  this  he  called  body: — 
the  other,  which  he  supposed  to  be 
simple,  and  of  a  purer  essence,  was 
contemplated  as  acting  from  itself,  and 
giving  motion  to  the  body  with  which 
it  found  itself  so  miraculously  united : 
this  he  called  soul  or  spirit :  the  func- 
tions of  the  one  he  denominated  physi- 
cal, corporeal,  material;  the  functions 
of  the  other  he  styled  spiritual,  intel- 
lectual. Man,  considered  relatively  to 
the  first,  was  termed  the  physical  man; 
viewed  with  relation  to  the  last,  he  was 
designated  the  -moral  man. 

These  distinctions,  although  adopted 
by  the  greater  number  of  the  philoso- 
Life  is  the  assemblage  of  motion  natural  to  an 
organized  being,  and  motion  can  only  be  a 
property  of  matter. 

*  When  man  once  imbibes. an  idea  he  can- 
not comprehend,  he  meditates  upon  it  until  he 
has  given  it  a  complete  personification.  Thus 
he  saw,  or  fancied  he  saw,  the  igneous  matter 
pervade  every  thing;  he  conjectured  that  it 
was  the  only  principle  of  life  and  activity;  and 
proceeding  to  imbody  it,  he  gave  it  his  own 
form,  called  it  JUPITER,  and  ended  by  worship- 
ping this  image  of  his  own  creation  as  the 
power  from  whom  he  derived  every  good  he 
experienced,  every  evil  he  sustained. 


phers  of  the  present  day,  arc  only 
founded  on  gratuitous  suppositions. 
Man  has  always  believed  he  remedied 
his  ignorance  of  things  by  inventing 
words  to  which  he  could  never  attach 
any  true  sense  or  meaning.  He  ima- 
gined he  understood  matter,  its  proper- 
ties, its  faculties,  its  resources,  its  dif- 
ferent combinations,  because  he  had 
a  superficial  glimpse  of  some  of  its 
qualities :  he  has,  however,  in  reality 
done  nothing  more  than  obscure  the 
faint  ideas  he  has  been  capacitated  to 
form  of  this  matter,  by  associating  it 
with  a  substance  much  less  intelligible 
than  itself.  It  is  thus  speculative  man, 
in  forming  words,  in  multiplying  beings, 
has  only  plunged  himself  into  greater 
difficulties  than  those  he  endeavoured 
to  avoid,  and  thereby  placed  obstacles 
to  the  progress  of  his  knowledge :  when- 
ever he  has  been  deficient  of  facts,  he 
has  had  recourse  to  conjecture,  which 
he  quickly  changed  into  fancied  reali- 
ties. Thus,  his  imagination  no  longer 
guided  by  experience,  was  lost,  without 
hope  of  return,  in  the  labyrinth  of  an* 
ideal  and  intellectual  world,  to  which 
he  had  himself  given  birth ;  it  was  next 
to  impossible  to  withdraw  him  from  this 
delusion,  to  place  him  in  the  right  road, 
of  which  nothing  but  experience  can 
furnish  him  the  clue.  Nature  points 
out,  that  in  man  himself,  as  well  as  in 
all  those  objects  which  act  upon  him, 
there  is  nothing  more  than  matter  en- 
dowed with  various  properties,  diversely 
modified,  and  acting  by  reason  of  these 
properties :  that  man  is  an  organized 
whole,  composed  of  a  variety  of  matter; 
thatj  like  all  the  other  productions  of 
nature,  he  follows  general  and  known 
laws,  as  well  as  those  laws  or  modes 
of  action  which  are  peculiar  to  himself, 
Jand  unknown. 

Thus,  when  it  shall  be  inquired, 
what  is  man  ? 

We  say,  he  is  a  material  being, 
organized  after  a  peculiar  manner ; 
conformed  to  a  certain  mode  of  think- 
ing, of  feeling,  capable  of  modification 
in  certain  modes  peculiar  to  himself, 
to  his  organization,  to  that  particular 
combination  of  matter  which  is  found 
assembled  in  him. 

If,  again,  it  be  asked,  what  origin  we 
give  to  beings  of  the  human  species  ? 

We  reply,  that,  like  all  other  beings, 
man  is  a  production  of  nature,  who 


44 


OF  MAN. 


resembles  them  in  some  respects,  and 
finds  himself  submitted  to  the  same 
laws ;  who  differs  from  them  in  other 
respects,  and  follows  particular  laws 
determined  by  the  diversity  of  his  con- 
formation. 

If.  then,  it  be  demanded,  whence  came 
man?* 

We  answer,  our  experience  on  this 
head  does  not  capacitate  us  to  resolve 
the  question ;  but  that  it  cannot  interest 
us,  as  it  suffices  for  us  to  know  that  man 
exists,  and  that  he  is  so  constituted  as 
to  be  competent  to  the  effects  we  wit- 
ness. 

But  it  will  be  urged,  has  man  always 
existed?  Has  the  human  species  ex- 
isted from  all  eternity,  or  is  it  only  an 
instantaneous  production  of  nature  ? 
Have  there  been  always  men  like  our- 
selves? Will  there  always  be  such? 
Have  there  been,  in  all  times,  males 
and  females  ?  Was  there  a  first  man, 
from  whom  all  others  are  descended  ? 
Was  the  animal  anterior  to  the  egg,  or 
did  the  egg  precede  the  animal?  Is 
this  species  without  beginning?  Will 
it  also  be  without  end  ?  The  species 
itself,  is  it  indestructible,  or  does  it  pass 
away  like  its  individuals?  Has  man 
always  been  what  he  now  is,  or  has  he, 
before  he  arrived  at  the  state  in  which 
we  see  him,  been  obliged  to  pass  under 
an  infinity  of  successive  developments  ? 
Can  man  at  last  flatter  himself  with 
having  arrived  at  a  fixed  being,  or  must 
the  human  species  again  change  ?  If 
man  is  the  production  of  nature,  it  will 
perhaps  be  asked,  Is  this  nature  com- 
petent to  the  production  of  new  beings, 
and  to  make  the  old  species  disappear? 
Adopting  this  supposition,  it  may  be 
inquired,  why  nature  does  not  pro- 
duce under  our  eyes  new  beings,  new 
species  ? 

It  would  appear  on  reviewing  these 
questions,  to  be  perfectly  indifferent,  as 
to  the  stability  of  the  argument  we  have 
used,  which  side  was  taken :  for  want 
of  experience,  hypothesis  must  settle 
a  curiosity  that  always  endeavours  to 


*  Theologians  will,  without  hesitation,  an- 
swer this  question  in  the  most  dogmatic  and 
positive  manner.  Not  only  they  will  tell  you 
-whence  man  came,  but  also  how  and  -who 
brought  him  into  existence;  and  what  he  said 
and  whit  he  did  when  he  first  walked  the 
earth.  However,  true  philosophy  says — "  Ida 
not  know." 


spring  forward  beyond  the  boundaries 
prescribed  to  our  mind.  This  granted, 
the  contemplator  of  nature  will  say, 
that  he  sees  no  contradiction  in  sup- 
posing the  human  species,  such  as  it  is 
at  the  present  day,  was  either  produced 
in  the  course  of  time,  or  from  all  eter- 
nity: he  will  not  perceive  any  advan- 
tage that  can  arise  from  supposing  that 
it  has  arrived  by  different  stages,  or 
successive  developments,  to  that  state 
in  which  it  is  actually  found.  Matter 
is  eternal,  and  necessary,  but  its  forms 
are  evanescent  and  contingent.  It  may 
be  asked  of  man,  is  he  any  thing  more 
than  matter  combined,  of  which  the 
form  varies  every  instant  ? 

Notwithstanding,  some  reflections 
seem  to  favour  the  supposition,  and  to 
render  more  probable  the  hypothesis  that 
man  is  a  production  formed  in  the  course 
of  time ;  who  is  peculiar  to  the  globe 
he  inhabits,  and  the  result  of  the  pecu- 
liar laws  by  which  it  is  directed ;  who, 
consequently,  can  only  date  his  forma- 
tion as  coeval  with  that  of  his  planet. 
Existence  is  essential  to  the  universe, 
or  to  the  total  assemblage  of  matter 
essentially  varied  that  presents  itself 
to  our  contemplation ;  but  the  combina- 
tions, the  forms,  are  not  essential.  This 
granted,  although  the  matter  of  which 
the  earth  is  composed  has  always  ex- 
isted, this  earth  may  not  always  have 
had  its  present  form  and  its  actual 
properties — perhaps,  it  may  be  a  mass 
detached  in  the  course  of  time  from 
some  other  celestial  body  ; — perhaps, 
it  is  the  result  of  the  spots  or  encrusta- 
tions which  astronomers  discover  in  the 
sun's  disk,  which  have  had  the  faculty 
to  diffuse  themselves  over  our  planetary 
system — perhaps,  the  sphere  we  inhabit 
may  be  an  extinguished  or  a  displaced 
comet,  which  heretofore  occupied  some 
other  place  in  the  regions  of  space,  and 
which,  consequently,  was  then  compe- 
tent to  produce  beings  very  different 
from  those  Ave  now  behold  spread  over 
its  surface,  seeing  that  its  then  position, 
its  nature,  must  have  rendered  its  pro- 
ductions different  from  those  which,  at 
this  day,  it  offers  to  our  vieAv. 

Whatever  may  be  the  supposition 
adopted,  plants,  animals,  men,  can  only 
be  regarded  as  productions  inherent  in 
and  natural  to  our  globe,  in  the  position 
or  in  the  circumstances  in  which  it  is 
actually  found :  these  productions  would 


OF  MAN. 


43 


ne  changed,  if  this  globe,  by  any  revo- 
lution, should  happen  to  shift  its  situa- 
tion. What  appears  to  strengthen  this 
hypothesis,  is,  that  on  our  ball  itself, 
all  the  productions  vary  by  reason  of  its 
different  climates:  men,  animals,  vege- 
tables, minerals,  are  not  the  same  on 
every  part  of  it:  they  vary  sometimes 
in  a  very  sensible  manner,'  at  very 
inconsiderable  distances.  The  elephant 
is  indigenous  to,  or  a  native  of  the 
torrid  zone :  the  reindeer  is  peculiar  to 
the  frozen  climates  of  the  north :  Indos- 
tan  is  the  womb  that  matures  the  dia- 
mond ;  we  do  not  find  it  produced  in 
our  own  country :  the  pineapple  grows 
in  the  common  atmosphere  of  America ; 
in  our  climate  it  is  never  produced  until 
art  has  furnished  a  sun  analogous  to 
that  which  it  requires.  Lastly,  man, 
in  d  ifferent  climates,  varies  in  his  colour, 
in  his  size,  in  his  conformation,  in  his 
powers,  in  his  industry,  in  his  courage, 
in  the  faculties  of  his  mind.  But,  what 
is  it  that  constitutes  climate  1  It  is  the 
different  position  of  parts  of  the  same 
globe  relatively  to  the  sun  ;  positions 
that  suffice  to  make  a  sensible  variety 
in  its  productions. 

There  is,  then,  sufficient  foundation 
to  conjecture,  that,  if  by  any  accident 
our  globe  should  become  displaced,  all 
its  productions  would  of  necessity  be 
changed ;  for,  causes  being  no  longer 
the  same,  or  no  longer  acting  after  the 
same  manner,  the  effects  would  neces- 
sarily no  longer  be  what  they  now  are : 
all  productions,  that  they  may  be  able 
to  conserve  themselves,  or  maintain 
their  actual  existence,  have  occasion 
to  co-order  themselves  with  the  whole 
from  which  they  have  emanated :  with- 
out this,  they  would  no  longer  be  in  a 
capacity  to  subsist.  It  is  this  faculty 
of  co-ordering  themselves, — this  rela- 
tive adaptation,  Avhich  is  called  the 
order  of  the  universe,  the  want  of  it 
is  called  confusion.  Those  productions 
which  are  treated  as  monstrous,  are 
such  as  are  unable  to  co-order  them- 
selves with  the  general  or  particular 
laws  of  the  beings  who  surround  them, 
or  with  the  whole  in  which  they  find 
themselves  placed :  they  have  had  the 
faculty  in  their  formation  to  accommo- 
date themselves  to  these  laws ;  but  these 
very  laws  are  opposed  to  their  perfec- 
tion :  for  this  reason,  they  are  unable  to 
subsist.  It  is  thus,  that,  by  a  certain 


analogy  of  conformation  which  exists 
between  animals  of  different  species, 
mules  are  easily  produced  ;  but  these 
mules  cannot  propagate  their  species. 
Man  can  live  only  in  air,  fish  only  in 
water.  Put  the  man  into  the  water, 
the  fish  into  the  air,  not  being  able  to 
co-order  themselves  with  the  fluids 
which  surround  them,  these  animals 
will  quickly  be  destroyed.  Transport, 
by  imagination,  a  man  from  our  planet 
into  Saturn,  his  lungs  will  presently 
be  rent  by  an  atmosphere  too  rarefied 
for  his  mode  of  being,  his  members  will 
be  frozen  with  the  intensity  of  the  cold; 
he  will  perish  for  want  of  finding  ele- 
ments analogous  to  his  actual  existence : 
transport  another  into  Mercury,  the  ex- 
cess of  heat  Avill  quickly  destroy  him. 

Thus,  everything  seems  to  authorize 
the  conjecture  that  the  human  species 
is  a  production  peculiar  to  our  sphere, 
in  the  position  in  which  it  is  found  : 
that,  when  this  position  may  happen  to 
change,  the  human  species  will,  of 
consequence,  either  be  changed,  or  will 
be  obliged  to  disappear ;  for  then,  there 
would  not  be  that  with  which  man  could 
co-order  himself  with  the  whole,  or  con- 
nect himself  with  that  which  can  enable 
him  to  subsist.  It  is  this  aptitude  in 
man  to  co-order  hirnielTwith  the  whole, 
that  not  only  furnishes  him  with  the 
idea  of  order,  but  also  makes  him  ex- 
claim, Whatever  is,  is  right,  whilst 
every  thing  is  only  that  which  it  can 
be,  and  the  whole  is  necessarily  what 
it  is,  and  whilst  it  is  positively  neither 
good  nor  bad.  It  is  only  requisite  to 
displace  a  man  to  make  him  accuse  the  , 
universe  of  confusion. 

These  reflections  would  appear  to 
contradict  the  ideas  of  those  who  are 
willing  to  conjecture  that  the  other 
planets,  like  our  own,  are  inhabited  by 
beings  resembling  ourselves.  But  if 
the  Laplander  differs  in  so  marked  a 
manner  from  the  Hottentot,  what  differ- 
ence ought  we  not  rationally  to  suppose 
between  an  inhabitant  of  our  planet  and 
one  of  Saturn  or  of  Venus  ? 

However,  if  AVC  are  obliged  to  recur, 
by  imagination,  to  the  origin  of  things, 
to  the  infancy  of  the  human  species, 
we  may  say,  that  it  is  probable  man 
was  a  necessary  consequence  of  the 
disentangling  of  our  globe,  or  one  of 
the  results  of  the  qualities,  of  the  pro- 
perties, of  the  energies  of  which  it  is 


OF  MAN. 


susceptible  in  its  present  position ; — 
that  he  was  born  male  and  female  ; — 
that  his  existence  is  co-ordinate  with 
that  of  the  globe,  under  its  present 
position ; — that  as  long  as  this  co-ordi- 
nation shall  subsist,  the  human  species 
will  conserve  himself,  will  propagate 
himself,  according  to  the  impulse  and 
the  primitive  laws  which  he  has  origi- 
nally received — that,  if  this  co-ordina- 
tion should  happen  to  cease ;  if  the 
earth,  displaced,  should  cease  to  receive 
the  same  impulse,  the  same  influence, 
on  the  part  of  those  causes  which  actu- 
ally act  upon  it  and  give  it  energy  ; 
that  then,  the  .  human  species  would 
change  to  make  place  for  new  beings 
suitable  to  co-order  themselves  with 
the  state  that  should  succeed  to  that 
which  we  now  see  subsist. 

In  thus  supposing  changes  in  the 
position  of  our  globe,  the  primitive  man 
did,  perhaps,  differ  more  from  the  actual 
man  than  the  quadruped  differs  from 
the  insect.  Thus,  man,  the  same  as 
every  thing  else  that  exists  on  our 
planet,  as  well  as  in  all  the  others, 
may  be  regarded  as  in  a  state  of  con- 
tinual vicissitude :  thus,  the  last  term 
of  the  existence  of  man,  is,  to  us,  as 
unknown,  as  indistinct,  as  the  first : 
there  is,  therefore,  no  contradiction  in 
the  belief,  that  the  species  vary  inces- 
santly ;  and  it  is  as  impossible  to  know 
what  he  will  become,  as  to  know  what 
he  has  been. 

With  respect  to  those  who  may  ask, 
why  nature  does  not  produce  new 
beings  ?  we  inquire  of  them  in  turn, 
upon  what  foundation  they  suppose 
this  fact  ?  What  is  it  that  authorizes 
them  to  believe  this  sterility  in  nature  1 
Know  they,  if,  in  the  various  combina- 
tions which  she  is  every  instant  form- 
ing, nature  be  not  occupied  in  producing 
new  beings  without  the  cognizance  of 
these  observers?  Who  has  informed 
them  that  this  nature  is  not  actually 
assembling  in  her  immense  elaboratory 
the  elements  suitable  to  bring  to  light 
generations  entirely  new,  that  will  have 
nothing  in  common  with  those  of  the 
species  at  present  existing  1*  What 

*  How  do  we  know  that  the  various  beings 
and  productions  said  to  have  been  created  at 
the  same  time  with  man,  are  not  the  posterior 
and  spontaneous  production  of  Nature  1  Four 
thousand  years  ago  man  became  acquainted 
with  the  lion : — well !  what  are  four  thousand 
yean  1  Who  can  prove  that  the  lion,  seen  for 


absurdity,  then,  or  what  want  of  just 
inference  would  there  be  to  imagine, 
that  man,  the  horse,  the  fish,  the  bird, 
will  be  no  more !  Are  these  animals 
so  indispensably  requisite  to  nature, 
that  without  them  she  cannot  continue 
her  eternal  course  ?  Does  not  all  change 
around  us?  Do  we  not  change  our- 
selves ?  Is  it  not  evident  that  the  whole 
universe  has  not  been,  in  its  anterior 
eternal  duration,  rigorously  the  same 
that  it  now  is  ;  that  it  is  impossible,  in 
its  posterior  eternal  duration,  it  can  be 
rigidly  in  the  same  state  that  it  now  is 
for  a  single  instant  ?  How,  then,  pre- 
tend to  divine  the  infinite  succession  of 
destruction,  of  reproduction,  of  combi- 
nation, of  dissolution,  of  metamorphosis, 
of  change,  of  transposition,  which  may 
eventually  take  place?  Suns  encrust 
themselves,  and  are  extinguished ;  pla- 
nets perish  and  disperse  themselves  in 
the  vast  plains  of  air ;  other  suns  are 
kindled ;  new  planets  form  themselves, 
either  to  make  revolutions  round  these 
suns,  or  to  describe  new  routes ;  and 
man,  an  infinitely  small  portion  of  the 
globe,  which  is  itself  but  an  impercep- 
tible point  in  the  immensity  of  space, 
vainly  believes  it  is  for  himself  this 
universe  is  made ;  foolishly  imagines 
ought  to  be  the  confidant  of  nature ; 
confidently  flatters  himself  he  is  eternal, 
and  calls  himself  KING  OP  THE  UNIVERSE  ! ! 
O  man !  wilt  thou  never  conceive  that 
:hou  art  but  an  ephemeron  ?  All  changes 
n  the  universe :  nature  contains  no  one 
constant  form,  yet  thou  pretendest  that 
thy  species  can  never  disappear;  that 
thou  shalt  be  exempted  from  the  uni- 
versal law,  that  wills  all  shall  expe- 
rience change !  Alas !  in  thy  actual 
>eing,  art  thou  not  submitted  to  con- 
inual  alterations  ?  Thou,  who  in  thy 
oily  arrogantly  assumest  to  thyself  the 
itle  of  KING  OF  NATDRE  !  Thou,  who 
measures!  the  earth  and  the  heavens ! 
Thou,  who  in  thy  vanity  imagines!  that 
he  whole  was  made  because  thou  art 
ntelligent'.  there  requires  but  a  very 
slight  accident,  a  single  atom  to  be  dis- 
)laced,  to  make  thee  perish ;  to  degrade 
hee ;  to  ravish  from  thee  this  intelli- 
gence of  which  thou  appearest  so  proud. 

.he  first  time  by  man  four  thousand  years  ago, 
lad  not  then  been  in  existence  thousands  of 
years!  or  again,  that  this  lion  was  not  pro- 
duced thousands  of  years  after  the  proud  biped 
who  arrogantly  calls  himself  king  of  the  uni- 
•crte  1 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


47 


If  all  the  preceding  conjectures  be 
refused  ;  if  it  be  pretended  that  nature 
acts  by  a  certain  quantum  of  immuta- 
ble and  general  laws  ;  if  it  be  believed 
that  men,  quadrupeds,  fish,  insects, 
plants,  are  from  all  eternity,  and  will 
remain  eternally  what  they  now  are  : 
if  it  be  contended,  that  from  all  eterni- 
ty the  stars  have  shone  in  the  immense 
regions  of  space ;  if  it  be  insisted  that 
we  must  no  more  demand  why  man  is 
such  as  he  appears  than  ask  why  na- 
ture is  such  as  we  behold  her,  or  why 
the  world  exists ;  we  shall  no  longer 
oppose  such  arguments.  Whatever  may 
be  the  system  adopted,  it  will  perhaps 
reply  equally  well  to  the  difficulties 
with  which  our  opponents  endeavour 
to  embarrass  the  way  :  examined  close- 
ly, it  Avill  be  perceived  they  make 
nothing  against  those  truths  which  we 
have  gathered  from  experience.  It  li 
not  given  to  man  to  know  every  thing : 
it  is  not  given  him  to  know  his  origin : 
it  is  not  given  him  to  penetrate  into  the 
essence  of  things,  nor  to  recur  to  first 
principles ;  but  it  is  given  him  to  have 
reason,  to  have  honesty,  to  ingenuous- 
ly allow  he  is  ignorant  of  that  which 
he  cannot  know,  and  not  to  substitute 
unintelligible  words  and  absurd  sugj 
positions  for  his  uncertainty.  Thus 
we  say  to  those  who,  to  solve  difficul- 
ties, pretend  that  the  human  species 
descended  from  a  first  man  and  a  first 
woman,  created  by  a  God,  that  we  have 
some  ideas  of  nature,  but  that  we  have 
none  of  the  Divinity  nor  of  creation,  and 
that  to  use  these  words,  is  only  mother 
terms  to  acknowledge  our  ignorance  of 
the  powers  of  nature,  and  our  inability 
to  fathom  the  means  by  which  she  has 
been  capacitated  to  produce  the  phe- 
nomena we  behold.* 

Let  us  then  conclude,  that  man  has 
no  reason  to  believe  himself  a  privi- 
leged being  in  nature,  for  he  is  subject 
to  the  same  vicissitudes  as  all  her  other 
productions.  His  pretended  preroga- 
tives have  their  foundation  in  errour. 
Let  him  but  elevate  himself,  by  his 
thoughts,  above  the  globe  he  inhabits, 
and  he  will  look  upon  his  own  species 

*  Ut  Tragici  poetae  confugiunt  ad  Deum 
aliquem,  cum  ahter  explicare  argument!  exi- 
tum  non  possunt.  Cicero,  de  Divinatione 
Lib.  2.  He  again  says,  magna  stulititia  est 
earum  rerum  Deos  facers  effectores,  causas 
icrum  non  qusrere. — Jb. 


with  the  same  eyes  he  does  all  the 
other  beings  in  nature.  He  will  then 
clearly  perceive  that  in  the  same  man- 
ner each  tree  produces  its  fruit  in  con- 
sequence of  its  species,  so  each  man 
acts  by  reason  of  his  particular  energy, 
and  produces  fruit,  actions,  works, 
equally  necessary :  he  will  feel,  that 
the  illusion  which  gives  him  such  an 
exalted  opinion  of  himself,  arises  from 
his  being,  at  one  and  the  same  time  a 
spectator  and  a  part  of  the  universe. 
He  will  acknowledge,  that  the  idea  of 
excellence  which  he  attaches  to  his 
being,  has  no  other  foundation  than  his 
own  peculiar  interest,  and  the  predilec- 
tion he  has  in  favour  of  himself,  t 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Of  the  Soul,  and  of  the  Spiritual  System. 

MAN,  after  having  gratuitously  sup- 
posed himself  composed  of  two  distinct 
independent  substances,  having  no 
common  properties  relatively  with  each 
other,\has  pretended,  as  we  have  seen, 
that  that  which  actuated  him  interiorly, 
that  motion  which  is  invisible,  that  im- 
pulse which  is  placed  within  himself, 
is  essentially  different  from  those  which 
act  exteriorly.  The  first  he  designa- 
ted, as  we  have  already  said,  by  the 
name  of  a  spirit,  or  a  soul  J  If,  how- 
ever, it  be  asked,  what  is  a  spirit  ?  the 
moderns  will  reply,  that  the  whole  fruit 
of  their  metaphysical  researches  is  li- 
mited to  learning  that  this  motive- 
power,  which  they  state  to  be  the 
spring  of  man's  action,  is  a  substance 
of  an  unknown  nature,  so  simple,  so 
indivisible,  so  deprived  of  extent,  so 
invisible,  so  impossible  to  be  discover- 
ed by  the  senses,  that  its  parts  cannot 
be  separated,  even  by  abstraction  or 
thought.  But  how  can  we  conceive 
such  a  substance,  which  is  only  the 
negation  of  every  thing  of  which  we 
have  a  knowledge  1  How  form  to  our- 
selves an  idea  of  a  substance  void  of 
extent,  yet  acting  on  our  senses  ;  that 
is  to  say,  on  material  organs  which 


.  t  In  Nature  nothing  is  mean  or  contempti- 
ble, and  it  is  only  pride,  originating  in  a  false 
idea  of  our  superiority,  which  causes  our  con- 
tempt for  some  of  her  productions.  In  the 
eyes  of  Nature,  however,  the  oyster  that  vege- 
tates at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  is  as  dear  and 
perfect  as  the  proud  biped  who  devour*  it. 


48 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


nave  extent  ?  How  can  a  being  with- 
out extent  be  moveable  and  put  matter 
in  action  ?  How  can  a  substance,  de- 
void of  parts,  correspond  successively 
with  different  parts  of  space  ? 

At  any  rate  all  men  are  agreed  in 
this  position,  that  motion  is  the  suc- 
cessive change  of  the  relations  of  one 
body  with  other  bodies,  or  with- the  dif- 
ferent parts  of  space.  If  that,  which  is 
called  spirit,  be  susceptible  of  com- 
municating or  receiving  motion;  if  it 
acts — if  it  gives  play  to  the  organs  or 
body — to  produce  these  effects  it  neces- 
sarily follows,  that  this  being  changes 
successively  its  relation,  its  tendency, 
its  correspondence,  the  position  of  its 
parts,  either  relatively  to  the  different 
points  of  space,  or  to  the  different 
organs  of  the  body  which  it  puts  in  ac- 
tion; but  to  change  its  relation  with 
space  and  Avith  the  organs  to  which  it 
gives  impulse,  this  spirit  must  have 
extent,  solidity,  consequently  distinct 
parts  :  whenever  a  substance  possesses 
these  qualities,  it  is  what  we  call  mat- 
ter, and  can  no  longer  be  regarded  as 
a  simple  pure  being  in  the  sense  at- 
tached to  it  by  the  moderns.* 

*  A  very  cogent  question  presents  itself  on 
this  occasion :  if  this  distinct  substance,  said 
to  form  one  of  the  component  parts  of  man, 
be  really  what  it  is  reported,  and  if  it  be  not, 
it  is  not  what  it  is  described;  if  it  be  unknown, 
if  it  be  not  pervious  to  the  senses ;  if  it  be  in- 
visible, by  what  means  did  the  metaphysi- 
cians themselves  become  acquainted  with  it? 
How  did  they  form  ideas  of  a  substance,  that, 
taking  their  own  account  of  it,  is  not,  under 
any  of  its  circumstances,  either  directly  or  by 
analogy  cognizable  to  the  mind  of  man  ?  If 
they  could  positively  achieve  this,  there  would 
no  longer  be  any  mystery  in  nature :  it  would 
be  as  easy  to  conceive  the  time  when  all  was 
nothing,  when  all  shall  have  passed  away,  to 
account  for  the  production  of  every  thing  we 
behold,  as  to  dig  in  a  garden,  or  read  a  lecture. 
Doubt  would  vanish  from  the  human  species ; 
there  could  no  longer  be  any  difference  of 
opinion,  since  -all  must  necessarily  be  of  one 
mind  on  a  subject  so  accessible  to  every  in- 
quirer. 

But  it  will  be  replied,  the  materialist  him- 
self admits,  the  natural  philosophers  of  all 
ages  have  admitted,  elements,  atoms,  beings 
simple  and  indivisible,  of  which  bodies  are 
composed  : — granted ;  they  have  no  more : 
they  have  also  admitted  that  many  of  these 
atoms,  many  of  these  elements,  if  not  all,  are 
unknown  to  them  :  nevertheless,  these  simple 
beings,  these  atoms  of  the  materialist,  are  not 
the  same  thing  with  the  spirit,  or  the  soul  of 
ihe  metaphysician.  When  the  natural  philo- 
sopher talks  of  atoms;  when  he  describes 


Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  those  who 
have  supposed  in  man  an  immaterial 
substance,  distinguished  from  his  body, 
have  not  thoroughly  understood  them- 
selves ;  indeed  they  have  done  nothing 
more  than  imagined  a  negative  quality 
of  which  they  cannot  have  any  correct 
idea :  matter  alone  is  capable  of  acting 
on  our  senses,  and  without  this  action 
nothing  Avould  be  capable  of  making  it- 
self known  to  us.  They  have  not  seen 
that  a  being  without  extent,  is  neither 
in  a  capacity  to  more  itself,  nor  has 
the  capability  of  communicating  motion 
to  the  body,  since  such  a  being,  having 
no  parts,  has  not  the  faculty  of  chang- 
ing its  relation,  or  its  distance,  relative- 
ly to-  other  bodies,  nor  of  exciting  mo- 
tion in  the  human  body,  which  is  it- 
self material.  That  which  is  called 
our  soul,  moves  itself  with  us ;  now 
motion  is  a  property  of  matter — this 
soul  gives  impulse  to  the  arm ;  the  arm, 
moved  by  it,  makes  an  impression,  a 
blow,  that  folloAvs  the  general  law  of 
motion  :  in  this  case,  the  force  remainr- 
ing  the  same,  if  the  mass  was  twofold, 
the  blow  would  be  double.  This  soul 
again  evinces  its  materiality  in  the  in- 
vincible obstacles  it  encounters  on  the 

them  as  simple  beings,  he  indicates  nothing 
more  than  that  they  are  homogeneous,  pure, 
without  mixture :  but  then  he  allows  that  they 
have  extent  consequently  parts  are  separable 
by  thought,  although  no  other  natural  agent 
with  which  he  is  acquainted  is  capable  of  di- 
viding them-  -that  the  simple  beings  of  this 
genus  are  susceptible  of  motion,  can  impart 
action,  receive  impulse,  are  material,  are 
placed  in  nature,  are  indestructible;  that  con- 
sequently, if  he  cannot  know  them  from  them- 
selves, he  can  form  some  idea  of  them  by 
analogy ;  thus  he  has  done  that  intelligibly 
which  the  metaphysician  would  do  unintelligi- 
bly:  the  latter,  with  a  view  to  render  man  im- 
mortal, finding  difficulties  to  his  wish,  from 
seeing  that  the  body  decayed — that  it  sub- 
mitted to  the  great,  the  universal  law — has, 
to  solve  the  difficulty,  to  remove  the  impedi- 
ment, given  him  a  soul,  distinct  from  the  body, 
which  rre  says  is  exempted  from  the  action  of 
the  general  law  :  to  account  for  this,  lie  has 
called  it  a  spiritual  being,  whose  properties 
are  the  negation  of  all  known  properties,  con- 
sequently inconceivable:  had  he,  however, 
had  recourse  to  the  atoms  of  the  former ;  had 
he  made  this  substance  the  last  possible  term 
of  the  division  of  matter,  it  would  at  least  have 
been  intelligible,"  it  would  also  have  been  im- 
mortal, since,  according  to  the  reasonings  of 
all  men,  whether  metaphysicians,  theologians, 
or  natural  philosophers,  an  atom  is  an  inde- 
structible element,  that  must  exist  to  all  eter- 
nity. 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


49 


part  of  the  body.  If  the  arm  be  moved 
by  its  impulse  when  nothing  opposes 
it,  yet  this  arm  can  no  longer  move 
when  it  is  charged  with  a  weight  be- 
yond its  strength.  Here  then  is  a 
mass  of  matter  that  annihilates  the  im- 
pulse given  by  a  spiritual  cause,  which 
spiritual  cause  having  no  analogy  with 
matter,  ought  not  to  find  more  difficulty 
in  moving  the  whole  world  than*  in 
moving  a  single  atom,  nor  an  atom 
than  the  universe.  From  this  it  is  fair 
to  conclude  that  such  a  substance  is  a 
chimera ;  a  being  of  the  imagination : 
nevertheless  such  is  the  being  the  me- 
taphysicians have  made  the  contriver 
and  the  author  of  nature  !  !* 

As  soon  as  I  feel  an  impulse  or  ex- 
perience motion,  I  am  under  the  ne- 
cessity to  acknowledge  extent,  solidity, 
density,  impenetrability  in  the  sub- 
stance I  see  move,  or  from  which  I  re- 
ceive impulse :  thus,  when  action  is 
attributed  to  any  cause  whatever,  I  am 
obliged  to  consider  it  material.  I  may 
be  ignorant  of  its  individual  nature,  of 
its  mode  of  action,  of  its  generic  pro- 
perties ;  but  I  cannot  deceive  myself 
in  general  properties  which  are  com- 
mon to  all  matter :  besides  this  ignor- 
ance will  only  be  increased,  when  I 
shall  take  that  for  granted  of  a  being 
of  which  I  am  precluded  from  forming 

*  As  man,  in  all  his  speculations,  takes 
himself  for  the  model,  he  no  sooner  imagined 
a  spirit  within  himself  than  giving  it  extent, 
he  made  it  universal,  then  ascribed  to  it  all 
those  causes  with  which  his  ignorance  pre- 
vents him  from  becoming  acquainted :  thus 
he  identified  himself  with  the  supposed  author 
of  nature ;  then  availed  himself  of  the  suppo- 
sition to  explain  the  connexion  of  the  soul 
with  the  body.  His  self-complacency  pre- 
vented his  perceiving  that  he  was  only  en- 
larging; the  circle  of  his  errpurs,  by  pretending 
to  understand  that  which  it  is  more  than  pro- 
bable he  will  never  know :  his  self-love  pre- 
vented him  from  feeling,  that,  whenever  he 
punished  another  for  not  thinking  as  he  did, 
he  committed  the  greatest  injustice,  unless  he 
was  satisfactorily  able  to  prove  that  other 
wrong— himself  right :  that  if  he  himself  was 
obliged  to  have  recourse  to  hypothesis,  to  gra- 
tuitous suppositions,  whereon  to  found  his 
doctrine,  that  from  the  very  fallibility  of  his 
nature  these  might  be  erroneous :  thus  GALI- 
LEO was  persecuted,  because  the  metaphysi- 
cians and  the  theologians  of  his  day  chose  to 
make  others  believe  what  it  was  evident  they 
did  not  themselves  understand.  As  to  our 
modern  metaphysicians,  they  may  dream  of 
a  universal  spirit  after  the  manner  of  the  hu- 
man soul— of  an  infinite  intelligence  after  the 
No.  II.— 7 


any  idea,  which  moreover  deprives  it 
completely  of  the  faculty  of  moving 
and  acting.  Thus?  a  spiritual  sub- 
stance, that  moves  itself,  that  gives  an 
impulse  to  matter,  that  acts,  implies  a 
contradiction,  which  necessarily  infers 
a  total  impossibility. 

The  partizans  of  spirituality  believe 
they  answer  the  difficulties  they  have 
themselves  accumulated,  by  saying, 
"  The  soul  is  entire,  is  whole  under 
each  point  of  its  extent."  If  an  ab- 
surd answer  will  solve  difficulties,  they 
have  done  it ;  for  after  all  it  will  be 
found,  that  this  point,  which  is  called 
soul,  however  insensible,  however  min- 
ute, must  yet  remain  something.!  But 
if  as  much  solidity  had  appeared  in  the 
answer  as  there  is  a  want  of  it,  it  must 
be  acknowledged,  that  in  whatever 
manner  the  spirit  or  the  soul  finds  it- 
self in  its  extent,  when  the  body  moves 
forward,  the  soul  does  not  remain  be- 
hind ;  if  so,  it  has  a  quality  in  common 
with  the  body  peculiar  to  matter,  since 
it  is  transferred  from  place  to  place 
jointly  with  the  body.  Thus,  if  even 
the  soul  should  be  immaterial,  what 
conclusion  must  be  drawn  ?  Entirely 
submitted  to  the  motion  of  the  body, 
without  this  body  it  would  remain  dead 
and  inert.  This  soul  would  only  be 
part  of  a  twofold  machine,  necessarily 

manner  of  a  finite  intelligence ;  but  in  so  do- 
ing they  do  not  perceive  that  this  spirit  or  in- 
telligence, whether  they  suppose  it  finite  or  in- 
finite, will  not  be  more  convenient  or  fit  to 
move  matter. 

t  According  to  this  answer  an  infinity  of 
unextended  substance,  or  the  same  unextend- 
ed  substance  repeated  an  infinity  of  times, 
would  constitute  a  substance  that  has  extent, 
which  is  absurd ;  for,  according  to  this  prin- 
ciple, the  human  soul  would  then  be  as  in- 
finite as  God,  since  it  is  assumed  that  God  is 
a  being  without  extent,  who  is  an  infinity  of 
times  whole  in  each  part  of  the  universe — 
and  the  same  is  stated  of  the  human  soul ; 
from  whence  we  must  necessarily  conclude 
that  God  and  the  soul  of  man  are  equally  in- 
finite, unless  we  suppose  unextended  sub- 
stances of  different  extents,  or  a  God  without 
extent  more  extended  than  the  human  soul. 
Such  are,  however,  the  rhapsodies  which  some 
of  our  theological  metaphysicians  would  have 
thinking  beings  believe!"  \Vith  a  view  of 
making  the  numan  soul  immortal,  these 
theologians  have  spiritualized  it,  and  thus 
rendered  it  an  unintelligible  being ;  had  they 
said  that  the  soul  was  the  minutest  division 
of  matter,  it  would  then  have  been  intelligi- 
ble— and  immortal  too,  since  it  would  have 
been  an  atom,  an  indissoluble  element. 


60 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


impelled  forward  by  a  concatenation  or 
connexion  with  the  whole.  It  would 
resemble  a  bird,  which  a  child  con- 
ducts at  its  pleasure  by  the  string  with 
which  it  is  bound. 

Thus,  it  is  for  want  of  consulting 
experience,  and  by  not  attending  to 
reason,  that  man  has  obscured  his  ideas 
upon  the  concealed  principle  of  his 
motion.  If,  disentangled  from  preju- 
dice, he  would  contemplate  his  soul,  or 
the  moving  principle  that  acts  within 
him,  he  would  be  convinced  that  it 
forms  part  of  his  body  ;  that  it  cannot 
be  distinguished  from  it  but  by  abstrac- 
tion ;  and  that  it  is  only  the  body  itself 
considered  relatively  with  some  of  its 
functions,  or  with  those  faculties  of 
which  its  nature  and  its  peculiar  or- 
ganization renders  it  susceptible.  He 
will  also  perceive  tharMhis  soul  is  obli- 
ged to  undergo  the  same  changes  as  the 
body  ;  that  it  is  born  and  expands  itself 
with  it ;  that,  like  the  body,  it  passes 
through  a  state  of  infancy,  a  period  of 
weakness,  a  season  of  inexperience  ; 
that  it  enlarges  and  strengthens  itself 
in  the  same  progression ;  that,  like  the 
body,  it  arrives  at  an  adult  age,  reaches 
maturity ;  that  it  is  then  it  obtains  the 
faculty  of  fulfilling  certain  functions, 
enjoys  reason,  and  displays  more  or 
less  wit,  judgment,  and  manly  activity ; 
that  like  the  body,  it  is  subject  to  those 
vicissitudes  which  exterior  causes 
oblige  it  to  undergo  by  their  influence ; 
that,  conjointly  with  the  body,  it  suffers, 
enjoys,  partakes  of  its  pleasures,  shares 
its  pains,  is  sound  when  the  body  is 
healthy,  diseased  when  the  body  is  op- 
pressed with  sickness ;  that,  like  the 
body,  it  is  continually  modified  by  the 
different  degrees  of  density  in  the  at- 
mosphere ;  by  the  variety  of  the  sea- 
sons ;  by  the  various  properties  of  the 
aliments  received  into  the  stomach  :  in 
short,  he  would  be  obliged  to  acknowl- 
edge that  at  some  periods,  it  manifests 
visible  signs  of  torpor,  decrepitude,  and 
death. 

In  despite  of  this  analogy,  or  rather 
this  continual  identity  of  the  soul  with 
the  body,  man  has  been  desirous  of 
distinguishing  their  essence :  he  has 
therefore  made  the  soul  an  inconceiva- 
ble being;  but  in  order  that  he  might 
form  to  himself  some  idea  of  it,  he 
was  after  all  obliged  to  have  re- 
course to  material  beings  and  to  their 


manner  of  acting.  In  fact,  the  word 
spirit  presents  to  the  mind  no  other 
ideas  than  those  of  breathing,  of  respi- 
ration, of  wind.  Thus,  when  it  is  said, 
the  soul  is  a  spirit,  it  really  means 
nothing  more  than  that  its  mode  of  ac- 
tion is  like  that  of  breathing,  which, 
though  invisible  in  itself,  or  acting 
without  being  seen,  produces,  never- 
theless, very  risible  effects.  But 
breath  is  a  material  cause — it  is  air 
modified ;  it  is  not  therefore  a  simple, 
a  pure  substance,  such  as  the  moderns 
designate  under  the  name  of  spirit* 

Although  the  word  spirit  is  so  very 
ancient  among  men,  the  sense  attach- 
ed to  it  by  the  moderns  is  quite  new ; 
and  the  idea  of  spirituality,  as  admitted 
at  this  day,  is  a  recent  production  of 
the  imagination.  Neither  Pythagoras 
nor  Plato,  however  heated  their  brain, 
and  however  decided  their  taste  for  the 
marvellous,  appear  to  have  understood 
by  spirit  an  immaterial  substance,  or 
one  without  extent,  such  as  that  of 
which  the  moderns  have  formed  the 
human  soul,  and  the  concealed  author 
of  motion.  The  ancients,  by  the  word 
spirit,  were  desirous  to  define  matter 
of  an  extreme  subtilty,  and  of  a  purer 
quality  than  that  which  acted  grossly 
on  our  senses.  In  consequence,  some 
have  regarded  the  soul  as  an  ethereal 
substance ;  others  as  igneous  matter : 
others  again  have  compared  it  to  light. 
Democritus  made  it  consist  in  motion, 
consequently  gave  it  a  mode  of  exist- 
ence. Aristoxenesj  who  was  himself 
a  musician,  made  it  harmony.  Aris-* 
totle  regarded  the  soul  as  the  moving1 
faculty  upon  which  depended  the  mo-' 
tion  of  living  bodies. 

The  earliest  doctors  of  Christianity 
had  no  other  idea  of  the  soul  than  that 
it  was  materiaLf  Tertullian,  Arnobius, 


*  The  Hebrew  word  Ruach,  signifies  breath, 
respiration.  The  Greek  word  TlvKi/ux,  means 
the  same  thing,  and  is  derived  from  mtua, 
spiro.  Lactantius  states  that  the  Latin  word 
anima  comes  from  the  Greek  word  Sveftos 
which  signifies  wind.  Some  metaphysicians 
fearful  of  seeing  too  far  into  human  nature, 
have  compounded  man  of  three  substances, 
body,  soul,  and  intellect — Za^e*,  4I/£''>  N*t.— •• 
See  Marc.  Antonin.,  Lib.  iii.  §  16. 

t  According  to  Origen,  atro-.u^TOf,  incor- 
poreus,  an  epithet  given  to  God,  signifies  a 
substance  more  subtile  than  that  of  gross 
bodies.  Tertullian  says,  Q,uis  autem  negabit 
deum  esse  corpus,  etsi  deus  spiritus?  The 
same  Tertulhan  says,  Nos  autem  animam 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


51 


Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  Saint 
Justin,  Irenaeus,  have  never  spoken  of 
it  other  than  as  a  corporeal  substance. 
It  was  reserved  for  their  successors,  at 
a  great  distance  of  time,  to  make  the 
human  soul,  and  the  soul  of  the  world, 
pure  spirits  ;  that  is  to  say,  immaterial 
substances,  of  which  it  is  impossible 
to  form  any  accurate  idea :  by  degrees 
this  incomprehensible  doctrine  of  spi- 
rituality, conformable  without  doubt  to 
the  views  of  theologians  who  make  it 
a  principle  to  annihilate  reason,  pre- 
vailed over  the  others:*  this  doctrine 
was  believed  divine  and  supernatural, 
because  it  was  inconceivable  to  man. 
Those  who  dared  believe  that  the  soul 
was  material,  were  held  as  rash,  in- 
considerate madmen,  or  else  treated  as 
enemies  to  the  welfare  and  happiness 
of  the  human  race.  When  man  had 
once  renounced  experience  and  abjured 
his  reason,  he  did  nothing  more,  day 
after  day,  than  subtilize  the  ravings  of 
his  imagination :  he  pleased  himself  by 
continually  sinking  deeper  into  the  most 
unfathomable  depths  of  errour ;  and  he 
felicitated  himself  on  his  discoveries,  on 
his  pretended  knowledge,  in  an  exact 
ratio  as  his  understanding  became  en- 
veloped with  the  clouds  of  ignorance. 
Thus,  in  consequence  of  man's  reason- 
ing upon  false  principles,  the  soul,  or 
moving  principle  within  him,  as  well 
as  the  concealed  moving  principle  of 
Nature,  have  been  made  mere  chime- 
ras, mere  beings  of  the  imagination.! 

corporalem  et  hie  profitemur,  et  in  suo  volu- 
inirie  probamus,  habentem  proprium  genus 
substantiae,  soliditatis,  per  quam  quid  et  sentire 
<>t  pati  possit.  V.  De  Resurrectione  Carnis. 

*  The  system  of  spirituality,  such  as  it  is 
admitted  at  this  day,  owes  all  its  pretended 
proofs  to  Descartes.  Although  before  him 
the  soul  had  been  considered  spiritual,  he  was 
the  first  who  established  that  "  that  which 
tkinks  ought  tobedistinguishedfrom  matter;" 
from  whence  he  concludes  that  the  soul,  or 
that  which  thinks  in  man,  is  a  spirit — that  is 
to  say,  a  simple  and  indivisible  substance. 
Would  it  not  have  been  more  consistent  with 
logic  and  reason  to  have  said  that,  since  man, 
who  is  matter  and  who  has  no  idea  but  of 
matter,  enjoys  the  faculty  of  thought,  matter 
can  think — that  is,  it  is  susceptible  of  that 
particular  modification  called  thought. — See 
Sayle's  Dictionary,  Art.  Pomponatius  and 
Simonides. 

t  Although  there  is  so  little  reason  and 
philosophy  in  the  system  of  spirituality,  yet 
we  must  confess  that  it  required  deep  cunning 
on  the  part  of  the  selfish  theologians  who 
invented  it.  To  render  man  susceptible  of 


Therefore  the  doctrine  of  spirituality 
offers  nothing  but  vague  ideas — or  ra- 
ther is  the  absence  of  all  ideas.  What 
does  it  present  to  the  mind,  but  a  sub- 
stance which  possesses  nothing  of 
which  our  senses  enable  us  to  have  a 
knowledge  ?  Can  it  be  truth,  that  man 
is  able  to  figure  to  himself  a  being  not 
material,  having  neither  extent  nor 
parts,  which,  nevertheless,  acts  upon 
matter  without  having  any  point  of 
contact,  any  kind  of  analogy  with  it, 
and  which  itself  receives  the  impulse 
of  matter  by  means  of  material  organs, 
which  announce  to  it  the  presence  01 
other  beings?  Is  it  possible  to  con- 
ceive the  union  of  the  soul  with  the 
body,  and  to  comprehend  how  this 
material  body  can  bind,  enclose,  con- 
strain, determine  a  fugitive  being  which 
escapes  all  our  senses?  Is  it  honest 
to  solve  these  difficulties  by  saying 
there  is  a  mystery  in  them ;  that  they 
are  the  effects  of  an  omnipotent  power 
more  inconceivable  than  the  human 
soul  and  its  mode  of  acting?  When,  to 
resolve  these  problems,  man  is  obliged 
to  have  recourse  to  miracles,  and  to 
make  the  Divinity  interfere,  does  he 
not  avow  his  own  ignorance  1 

Let  us  not,  then,  be  surprised  at  those 
subtle  hypotheses,  as  ingenious  as  they 
are  unsatisfactory,  to  which  theological 
prejudice  has  obliged  the  most  profound 
modern  speculators  to  recur,  when  they 
have  undertaken  to  reconcile  the  spi- 
rituality of  the  soul  with  the  physical 
action  of  material  beings  on  this  incor- 
poreal substance,  its  reaction  upon  these 
beings,  and  its  union  with  the  body. 
When  the  human  mind  permits  itself 
to  be  guided  by  authority  without  proof- 
to  be  led  forward  by  enthusiasm — when 
it  renounces  the  evidence  of  its  senses ; 
what  can  it  do  more  than  sink  into 
errour  ?{ 

rewards  and  punishments  after  death,  it  was 
necessary  to  exempt  some  portion  of  him  from 
corruption  and  dissolution — a  doctrine  ex- 
tremely useful  to  priests,  whose  great  aim  is 
to  intimidate,  govern,  and  plunder  the  igno- 
rant— a  doctrine  which  enables  them  even  to 
perplex  many  enlightened  persons,  who  are 
equally  incapable  of  comprehending  the  "  sub- 
lime truths"  about  the  soul  and  the  Divinity  ! 
These  honest  priests  tell  us,  that  this  imma- 
terial soul  shall  be  burnt,  or,  in  other  words, 
shall  experience  in  hell  the  action  of  the 
material  element  of  fire,  and  we  believe  them 
upon  their  word ! ! ! 

t  Those  who  wish  to  form  an  idea  of  the 
shackles  imposed  by  theology  on  the  genius 


0,  OF  ILL  LIB. 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


If  man  wishes  to  form  to  himself 
clear  ideas  of  his  soul,  let  him  throAv 
himself  back  on  his  experience ;  let  him 
renounce  his  prejudices ;  let  him  avoid 
theological  conjecture ;  let  him  tear  the 
sacred  bandage  with  which  he  has  been 
blindfolded  only  to  confound  his  reason. 
Let   the   natural  philosopher,  let   the 
anatomist,  let  the  physician,  unite  their 
experience  and  compare  their  observa- 
tions, in  order  to  show  what  ought  to 
be  thought  of  a  substance  so  disguised 
under  a  heap  of  absurdities :  let  their 
discoveries   teach  moralists   the   true 
motive-power  that  ought  to  influence 
the  actions  of  man — legislators,  the  true 
motives  that  should  excite  him  to  labour 
to  the  welfare  of  society — sovereigns, 
the  means  of  rendering  truly  happy 
the  subjects  committed  to  their  charge. 
Physical  souls  have  physical  wants, 
and  demand  physical  and  real  happi- 
ness, far  preferable  to  that  variety  of 
fanciful  chimeras  with  which  the  mind 
of  man  has  been  fed  during  so  many 
ages.     Let   us   labour  to   perfect   the 
morality  of  man ;  let  us  make  it  agree- 
able to  him;  and  we  shall  presently 
see  his  morals  become  better,  himself 
become  happier ;  his  mind  become  calm 
and  serene ;  his  will  determined  to  vir- 
tue by  the  natural  and  palpable  motives 
held  out  to  him.     By  the  diligence  and 
care  which  legislators  shall  bestow  on 
natural  philosophy,  they  Avill  form  citi- 
zens of  sound  understanding,  robust 
and  well  constituted,  who,  finding  them- 
selves happy,  will  be  themselves  acces- 
sary to  that  useful  impulse  so  necessary 
to  general  happiness.    When  the  body 
is  suffering,  when  nations  are  unhappy, 
the  mind  cannot  be  in  a  proper  state. 
Mens  sana  in  corpore  sano,  a  sound 
mind   in  a  sound   body,  this   always 
makes  a  good  citizen. 

The  more  man  reflects,  the  more  he 
will  be  convinced  that  the  soul,  very 
far  from  being  distinguished  from  the 
body,  is  only  the  body  itself  considered 
relatively  to  some  of  its  functions,  or  to 
some  of  the  modes  of  existing  or  acting 
of  which  it  is  susceptible  whilst  it  en- 

of  philosophers  born  under  the  "  Christian 
dispensation,"  let  them  read  the  metaphysical 
romances  of  Leibnitz,  Descartes,  Malebranche, 
Cudworth,  etc.  and  coolly  examine  the  inge- 
nious but  rhapsodical  systems  entitled  the 
Pre-established  harmony  of  occasional  causes ; 
Physical  pre-motion,  etc. 


joys  life.  Thus,  the  soul  is  man  con- 
sidered relatively  to  the  faculty  he  has 
of  feeling,  of  thinking,  and  of  acting  in 
a  mode  resulting  from  his  peculiar 
nature;  that  is  to  say,  from  his  pro- 
perties, from  his  particular  organiza- 
tion ;  from  the  modifications,  whether 
durable  or  transitory,  which  the  beings 
who  act  upon  him  cause  his  machine 
to  undergo.* 

Those  who  have  distinguished  the 
soul  from  the  body,  appear  only  to  have 
distinguished  their  brain  from  them- 
selves. Indeed,  the  brain  is  the  com- 
mon centre  where  all  the  nerves,  dis- 
tributed through  every  part  of  the  body, 
meet  and  blend  themselves :  it  is  by 
the  aid  of  this  interior  organ  that  all 
those  operations  are  performed  which 
are  attributed  to  the  soul :  it  is  the  im- 
pulse, the  motion,  communicated  to  the 
nerve,  which  modifies  the  brain :  in 
consequence,  it  reacts,  and  gives  play 
to  the  bodily  organs,  or  rather  it  acts 
upon  itself,  and  becomes  capable  of 
producing  within  itself  a  great  variety 
of  motion,  which  has  been  designated 
intellectual  faculties. 

From  this  it  may  be  seen,  that  some 
philosophers  have  been  desirous  to 
make  a  spiritual  substance  of  the  brain  ; 
but  it  is  evidently  ignorance  that  has 
both  given  birth  to,  and  accredited  this 
system,  which  embraces  so  little  of  the 
natural.  It  is  from  not  having  studied 
bimself  that  man  has  supposed  he  was 
compounded  with  an  agent  essentially 
different  from  his  body :  in  examining 
this  body  he  will  find  that  it  is  quite 
useless  to  recur  to  hypothesis  to  explain 
the  various  phenomena  it  presents ;  for 

*  When  a  theologian,  obstinately  bent  on 
admitting  into  man  two  sftbstances  essentially 
different,  is  asked  why  he  multiplies  beings 
without  necessity  ?  he  will  reply,  "  Because 
'nought  cannot  be  a  property  of  matter." 
[f,  then,  it  be  inquired  of  him,  '.'  Cannot  God 
give  to  matter  the  faculty  of  thought?"  he  will 
answer,  "No!  seeing  that  God  cannot  do  im- 
possible things .'"  But  this  is  atheism,  for, 
according  to  his  principles,  it  is  as  impossible 
:hat  spirit  or  thought  can  produce  matter,  as 
it  is  impossible  that  matter  can  produce  spirit 
or  thought :  it  must,  therefore,  be  concluded 
against  him,  that  the  world  was  not  made  by 
a  spirit,  any  more  than  a  spirit  was  made  by 
the  world ;  that  the  world  is  eternal,  and  if  an 
eternal  spirit  exists,  then  we  have  two  eternal 
beings,  which  is  absurd.  If,  therefore,  there 
is  only  one  eternal  substance,  it  is  the  world, 
whose  existence  cannot  be  doubted  or  de- 
nied. 


OP  THE  INTELLECT. 


hypothesis  can  do  nothing  more  than 
lead  him  out  of  the  right  road.  What 
obscures  this  question,  arises  from  this, 
that  man  cannot  see  himself:  indeed, 
for  this  purpose  it  would  be  requisite 
that  he  could  be  at  one  and  the  same 
moment  both  within  and  without  him- 
self. Man  may  be  compared  to  an 
Eolian  harp,  tliat  issues  sounds  of  it- 
self, and  should  demand  what  it  is  that 
causes  it  to  give  them  forth  ?  it  does  not 
perceive  that  the"  sensitive  quality  of 
its  chords  causes  the  air  to  brace  them ; 
that  being  so  braced,  it  is  rendered 
sonorous  by  every  gust  of  wind  with 
which  it  comes  in  contact. 

The  more  experience  we  collect,  the 
more  we  shall  be  convinced  that  the 
word  spirit  conveys  no  one  sense  even 
to  those  that  invented  it ;  consequently, 
cannot  be  of  the  least  use  either  in  phy- 
sics or  morals.  What  modern  metaphy- 
sicians believe  and  understand  by  the 
word,  is  in  truth  nothing  more  than  an 
occult  power,  imagined  to  explain  oc- 
cult qualities  and  actions,  but  which, 
in  fact,  explains  nothing.  Savage  na- 
tions admit  of  spirits  to  account  to 
themselves  for  those  effects  which  to 
them  appear  marvellous,  and  the  cause 
of  which  they  ignore.  In  attributing 
to  spirits  the  phenomena  of  nature,  as 
well  as  those  of  the  human  body,  do 
we,  in  fact,  do  any  thing  more  than 
reason  like  savages  ?  Man  has  filled 
nature  with  spirits,  because  he  has 
almost  always  been  ignorant  of  the 
true  causes  of  those  effects  by  which 
he  was  astonished.  Not  being  ac- 
quainted with  the  powers  of  nature,  he 
has  supposed  her  to  be  animated  by  a 
great  spirit:  not  understanding  the 
energy  of  the  human  frame,  he  has,  in 
like  manner,  conjectured  it  to  be  ani- 
mated by  a  spirit :  from  this  it  Avould 
appear,  that  whenever  he  wished  to  in- 
dicate the  unknown  cause  of  the  phe- 
nomena he  knew  not  how  to  explain 
m  a  natural  manner,  he  had  recourse 
to  the  word  spirit.  It  was  according 
to  these  principles,  that  when  the 
Americans  first  beheld  the  terrible  ef- 
fects of  gunpowder,  they  ascribed  the 
cause  to  their  Spirits  or  Divinities  :  it 
is  by  adopting  these  principles  that  we 
now  believe  in  Angels  and  Demons, 
and  that  our  ancestors  believed  in  a 
plurality  of  Gods,  in  ghosts,  in  genii, 
&c.,  and  pursuing  the  same  track,  we 


ought  to  attribute  to  spirits  gravitation, 
electricity,  magnetism,  &c.,  &c.* 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Qf  the  Intellectual  Faculties  ;  they  are  all  de~ 
rived  from,  the  Faculty  of  Feeling. 

To  convince  ourselves  that  the  facul- 
ties called  intellectual,  are  only  cer- 
tain modes  of  existence,  or  determinate 
manners  of  acting  which  result  from 
the  peculiar  organization  of  the  body, 
we  have  only  to  analyze  them:  we 
shall  then  see,  that  all  the  operations 
which  are  attributed  to  the  soul,  are 
nothing  more  than  certain  modifications 
of  the  body,  of  which  a  substance  that  is 
without  extent^  that  has  no  parts,  that 
[is  immaterial,  is  not  susceptible. 

The  first  faculty  we  behold  in  the 
living  man,  that  from  which  all  his 
others  flow,  is  feeling:  kowever  inex- 
plicable this  faculty  may  appear  on  a 
first  view,  if  it  be  examined  closely,  it 
;wjll  be  found  to  be  a  consequence  of 
the  essence,  a  result  of  the  properties 
of  organized  beings ;  the  same  as 
gravity,  magnetism,  elasticity,  elec- 
tricity, &c.  result  from  the  essence  or 
nature  of  some  others ;  and  we  shall 
also  find  that  these  last  phenomena  are 
not  less  inexplicable  than  that  of  feel- 
ing. Nevertheless,  if  we  wish  to  de- 
fine to  ourselves  a  precise  idea  of  it, 
we  shall  find  that  feeling  is  a  particuA 
lar  manner  of  being  moved  peculiar  to 
certain  organs  of  animated  bodies,  oc- 
casioned by  the  presence  of  a  material 
object  that  acts  upon  these  organs, 
and  which  transmits  the  impulse  or 
[shock  to  the  brain. 


*  It  is  evident  that  the  notion  of  spirits, 
imagined  by  savages  and  adopted  by  me  ig- 
norant, is  calculated  to  retard  the  progress  of 
knowledge,  since  it  precludes  our  researches 
into  the  true  cause  of  the  effects  which  we 
see,  by  keeping  the  human  mind  in  apathy 
and  sloth.  This  state  of  ignorance  may  be 
very  useful  to  crafty  theologians,  but  very  in- 
jurious to  society.  This  is  the  reason,  how- 
ever, why  in  all  ages  priests  have  persecuted 
those  who  have  been  the  first  to  give  natural 
explanations  of  the  phenomena  of  nature — a  s 
witness  Anaxagoras,  Aristotle,  Galileo,  Des- 
cartes— and,  more  recently,  Richard  Carlile, 
William  Lawrence,  Robert  Taylor,  and  Abner 
Kneeland;  to  which  we  may  add  the  name 
of  the  learned  and  venerable  Thomas  Cooper, 
M.  D.,  lately  president  of  Columbia  College, 
South  Carolina.  - 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


Man  only  feels  by  the  aid  of  nerves 
dispersed  through  his  body,  which  is 
itself,  to  speak  correctly,  nothing  more 
than  a  great  nerve  ;  or  may  be  said  to 
resemble  a  large  tree,  of  which  the 
branches  experience  the  action  of  the 
root  communicated  through  the  trunk. 
In  man  the  nerves  unite  and  loose 
themselves  in  the  brain  ;  that  intestine 
is  the  true  seat  of  feeling:  like  the 
spider  suspended  in  the  centre  of  his 
web,  it  is  quickly  warned  of  all  the 
changes  that  happen  to  the  body,  even 
at  the  extremities  to  which  it  sends  its 
filaments  and  branches.  Experience 
enables  us  to  ascertain  that  man  ceases 
to  feel  in  those  parts  of  his  body  of 
which  the  communication  with  the 
brain  is  intercepted ;  he  feels  very  little, 
or  not  at  all,  whenever  this  organ  is 
itself  deranged  or  affected  in  too  lively 
a  manner.* 

However  this  may  be,  the  sensibility 
of  the  brain,  and  of  all  its  parts,  is  a 
fact.  If  it  be  asked,  whence  comes  this 
property?  We  shall  reply,  it  is  the 
result  of  an  arrangement,  of  a  combina- 
tion, peculiar  to  the  animal ;  insomuch, 
that  coarse  and  insensible  matter  ceases 
to  be  so  by  animalizing  itself,  that  is  to 
say,  by  combining  and  identifying  itself 
with  the  animal.  It  is  thus  that  milk, 
bread,  wine,  change  themselves  in  the 
substance  of  man,  who  is  a  sensible 
being  :  this  insensible  matter  becomes 
sensible  in  combining  itself  with  a 
sensible  whole.  Some  philosophers 

*  A  proof  of  this  is  afforded  in  the  Trans- 
actions of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  at 
Paris :  they  inform  us  of  a  man,  who  had  his 
scull  taken  off,  in  the  room  of  which  his  brain 
was  re-covered  with  skin ;  and  in  proportion  as 
a  pressure  was  made  by  the  hand  on  his  brain, 
the  man  fell  into  a  kind  of  insensibility  which 
deprived  him  of  all  feeling.  Bartolin  says, 
the  brain  of  a  man  is  twice  as  big  as  that  of 
an  ox.  This  observation  had  been  already 
made  by  Aristotle.  In  the  dead  body  of  an 
idiot  dissected  by  Willis,  the  brain  was  found 
smaller  than  ordinary :  he  says,  the  greatest 
difference  he  found  between  the  parts  of  the 
body  of  this  idiot,  and  those  of  wiser  men, 
was,  that  the  plexus  of  the  intercostal  nerves, 
which  is  the  mediator  between  the  brain  and 
the  heart,  was  extremely  small,  accompanied 
by  a  less  number  of  nerves  than  usual.  Ac- 
cording to  Willis,  the  ape  is  of  all  animals 
that  which  has  the  largest  brain,  relatively  to 
his  size:  he  is  also,  after  man,  that  which  lias 
the  most  intelligence ;  and  this  is  further  con- 
firmed by  the  name  he  bears  in  the  soil  to 
which  he  is  indigenous,  which  is  orang  out- 
ang}  or  the  man  beast.  There  is,  therefore, 


think  that  sensibility  is  a  universal 
quality  of  matter :  in  this  case  it  would 
be  useless  to  seek  from  whence  this 
property  is  derived,  as  we  know  it  by 
its  effects.  If  this  hypothesis  be  ad- 
mitted, in  like  manner  as  two  kinds  of 
motion  are  distinguished  in  nature,  the 
one  called  live  force,  the  other  dead,  or 
inert  force,  two  sorts  of  sensibility  will 
be  distinguished — the  one  active  or  live, 
the  other  inert  or  dead.  Then  to  ani- 
malize  a  substance,  is  only  to  destroy 
the  obstacles  that  prevent  its  being 
active  or  sensible.  In  fact,  sensibility 
is  either  a  quality  which  communicates 
itself  like  motion,  and  which  is  acquired 
by  combination ;  or  this  sensibility  is  a 
property  inherent  in  all  matter :  in  both, 
or  either  case,  an  unextended  being, 
without  parts,  such  as  the  human  soul 
is  said  to  be,  canr  neither  be  the  cause 
of  it,  nor  submitted  to  its  operation.f 

The  conformation,  the  arrangement, 
the  texture,  the  delicacy  of  the  organs, 
as  well  exterior  as  interior,  which  com- 
pose men  and  animals,  render  their 
parts  extremely  mobile,  and  make  their 
machine  susceptible  of  being  moved 
with  great  facility.  In  a  body,  which 
is  only  a  heap  of  fibres,  a  mass  of  nerves, 
contiguous  one  to  the  other,  and  united 
in  a  common  centre,  always  ready  to 
act ;  in  a  whole,  composed  of  fluids  and 
of  solids,  of  which  the  parts  are  in  equi- 
librium ;  of  which  the  smallest  touch 
each  other,  are  active,  rapid  in  their 
motion,  communicating  reciprocally, 

every  reason  to  believe  that  it  is  entirely  in 
the  brain  that  consists  the  difference  that  is 
found  not  only  between  man  and  beasts,  but 
also  between  the  man  of  wit  and  the  fool ; 
between  the  thinking  man  and  he  who  is  ig- 
norant; between  the  man  of  sound  under- 
standing and  the  madman.  And  again,  a 
multitude  of  experience  proves  that  those  per- 
sons who  are  most  accustomed  to  use  tneir 
intellectual  faculties,  have  their  brain  more 
extended  than  others :  the  same  has  been  re- 
marked of  watermen  or  rowers,  that  they 
have  arms  much  larger  than  other  men. 

t  All  the  parts  of  nature  enjoy  the  capa- 
bility to  arrive  at  animation;  the  obstacle  is 
only  in  the  state  not  in  the  quality.  Life  is 
the  perfection  of  nature:  she  has  no  parts 
which  do  not  tend  to  it,  and  which  dp  not 
attain  it  by  the  same  means.  Life,  in  an 
insect,  a  dog,  a  man,  has  no  other  difference 
than  that  this  act  is  more  perfect,  relatively  to 
ourselves,  in  proportion  to  the  structure  of  the 
organs :  if,  therefore,  it  be  asked,  what  is  requi- 
site to  animate  a  body?  we  reply,  it  needs  no 
foreign  aid,  it  is  sufficient  that  the  power  of 
nature  be  joined  to  its  organization. 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


alternately  and  in  succession,  the  im- 
pression*, the  oscillations,  the  shocks 
they  receive ;  in  such  a  composition, 
I  say,  it  is  not  at  all  surprising  that  the 
slightest  impulse  propagates  itself  with 
celerity  ;  that  the  shocks  excited  in  its 
remotest  parts  make  themselves  quickly 
felt  in  the  brain,  whose  delicate  texture 
renders  it  susceptible  of  being  itself  very 
easily  modified.  Air,  fire,  water,  agents 
the  most  inconstant,  possessing  the  most 
rapid  motion,  circulate  continually  in  the 
fibres,  incessantly  penetrate  the  nerves, 
and  without  doubt  contribute  to  that 
incredible  celerity  with  which  the  brain 
is  acquainted  with  what  passes  at  the 
extremities  of  the  body. 

Notwithstanding  the  great  mobility 
of  which  man's  organization  renders 
him  susceptible ;  although  exterior  as 
well  as  interior  causes  are  continually 
acting  upon  him,  he  does  not  always 
feel  in  a  distinct,  in  a  decided  manner, 
the  impulse  given  to  his  senses :  indeed, 
he  does  not  feel  it  until  it  has  produced 
some  change,  or  given  some  shock  to 
his  brain.  Thus,  although  completely 
environed  by  air,  he  does  not  feel  its 
action  until  it  is  so  modified  as  to  strike 
with  a  sufficient  degree  of  force  on  his 
organs  and  his  skin,  through  which  his 
brain  is  warned  of  its  presence.  Thus, 
during  a  profound  and  tranquil  sleep, 
undisturbed  by  any  dream,  man  ceases 
to  feel.  In  short,  notwithstanding  the 
continued  motion  that  agitates  his  frame, 
man  does  not  appear  to  feel  when  this 
motion  acts  in  a  convenient  order;  he 
does  not  perceive  a  state  of  health,  but 
he  discovers  a  state  of  grief  or  sickness; 
because,  in  the  first,  his  brain  does  not 
receive  too  lively  an  impulse,  whilst  in 
the  others  his  nerves  are  contracted, 
shocked,  agitated,  with  violent  and  dis- 
orderly motion,  thus  giving  notice  t&at 
some  cause  acts  strongly  upon  them, 
and  impels  them  in  a  manner  that  bears 
no  analogy  with  their  natural  habit : 
this  constitutes  in  him  that  peculiar 
mode  of  existing  which  he  calls  grief. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  sometimes  hap- 
pens that  exterior  objects  produce  very 
considerable  changes  on  his  body,  with- 
out his  perceiving  them  at  the  moment. 
Often,  in  the  heat  of  battle,  the  soldier 
perceives  not  that  he  is  dangerously 
wounded ;  because  at  the  time  the 
rapidity,  the  multiplicity  of  impetuous 
motions  that  assail  his  brain,  do  not 


permit  him  to  distinguish  the  particular 
change  a  part  of  his  body  has  undergone 
by  the  wound.  In  short,  Avhen  a  great 
number  of  causes  are  simultaneously 
acting  on  him  wijh  too  much  vivacity, 
he  sinks  under  their  accumulated  pres- 
sure,— he  swoons — he  loses  his  senses — 
he  is  deprived  of  feeling. 

In  general,  feeling  only  obtains  when 
the  brain  can  distinguish  distinctly  the 
impressions  made  on  the  organs  with 
which  it  has  communication ;  it  is  the 
distinct  shock,  the  decided  modification, 
man  undergoes,  that  constitutes  con- 
science.* From  whence  it  will  appetfr, 
that  feeling  is  a  mode  of  being,  or  a 
marked  change,  produced  on  our  brain 
by  the  impulse  communicated  to  our 
organs,  whether  by  interior  or  exterior 
agents,  and  by  which  it  is  modified, 
either  in  a  durable  or  transient  manner. 
In  fact,  it  is  not  always  requisite  that 
man's  organs  should  be  moved  by  an 
exterior  object  to  enable  him  to  be  con- 
scious of  the  changes  effected  in  him : 
he  can  feel  them  within  himself  by 
means  of  an  interior  impulse ;  his  brain 
is  then  modified,  or  rather,  he  renews 
within  himself  the  anterior  modifica- 
tions. We  should  not  be  astonished 
that  the  brain  should  be  necessarily 
warned  of  the  shocks,  of  the  impedi- 
ments, of  the  changes  that  may  happen 
to  so  complicated  a  machine  as  the 
human  body,  in  which  all  the  parts  are 
contiguous  to  the  brain — to  a  whole,  in 
which  all  the  sensible  parts  concentrate 
themselves  in  this  brain,  and  are  by 
their  essence  in  a  continual  state  of 
action  and  reaction. 

When  a  man  experiences  the  pains 
of  the  gout,  he  is  conscious  of  them; 
in  other  words,  he  feels  interiorly  that 
it  has  produced  very  distinct  changes 
in  him,  without  his  perceiving  that  he 
has  received  an  impulse  from  any  ex- 
terior cause  ;  nevertheless,  if  he  will 
recur  to  the  true  source  of  these  changes, 
he  will  find  that  they  have  been  wholly 
produced  by  exterior  agents ;  they  have 
been  the  consequence  either  of  his  tem- 
perament, of  the  organization  received 
from  his  parents,  or  of  the  aliments  with 
which  his  frame  has  been  nourished, 


*  Doctor  Clarke  says,  Conscience  is  the  act 
of  reflecting,  by  means  of  which  I  know  that  I 
think ;  and  that  my  tlioughts,  or  my  actions, 
belong  to  me,  and  not  to  another. — See  his  tetter 
against  Dodwell. 


56 


OP  THE  INTELLECT. 


besides  a  thousand  trivial,  inappreciable 
causes,  which,  congregating  themselves 
by  degrees,  produce  in  him  the  gouty 
humour,  the  effect  of  which  is  to  make 
him  feel  in  a  very  acute  manner.  The 
pain  of  the  gout  engenders  in  his  brain 
an  idea  or  modification  which  it  ac- 
quires the  faculty  of  representing  or 
reiterating  to  itself,  even  when  he  shall 
be  no  longer  tormented  with  the  gout : 
his  brain,  by  a  series  of  motion  inte- 
riorly excited,  is  again  placed  in  a  state 
analogous  to  that  in  which  it  was  when 
he  really  experienced  this  pain :  but  if 
he  had  never  felt  it,  he  would  have  had 
no  idea  of  this  excruciating  disease. 

The  visible  organs  of  man's  body, 
by  the  intervention  of  which  his  brain 
is  modified,  take  the  name  of  senses. 
The  various  modifications  which  his 
brain  receives  by  the  aid  of  these  senses, 
assume  a  variety  of  names.  Sensation, 
perception,  idea,  are  terms  that  desig- 
nate nothing  more  than  the  changes 
produced  in  this  interior  organ,  in  con- 
sequence of  impressions  made  on  the 
exterior  organs  by  bodies  acting  on 
them :  these  changes,  considered  by 
themselves,  are  called  sensations;  they 
adopt  the  term  perception,  when  the 
brain  is  warned  of  their  presence;  ideas, 
is  that  state  of  them  in  which  the  brain 
is  able  to  ascribe  them  to  the  objects 
by  which  they  have  been  produced.  .  j 

Every  sensation,  then,  is  nothing 
more  than  the  shock  given  to  the  or- 
gans ;  every  perception,  is  this  shock 
propagated  to  the  brain:  every  idf-a. 
is  the  image  of  the  object  to  which 
the  sensation  and  the  perception  is  to 
be  ascribed.  From  whence  it  will  be 
seen,  that  if  the  senses  be  not  moved, 
there  can  neither  be  sensations,  per- 
ceptions, nor  ideas :  and  this  will  be 
proved  to  those  who  yet  doubt  so  de- 
monstrable and  striking  a  truth. 

It  is  the  extreme  mobility  of  which 
man  is  capable,  owing  to  his  peculiar 
organization,  which  distinguishes  him 
from  other  beings  that  are  called  insen- 
sible or  inanimate:  and  the  different 
degrees  of  mobility  of  which  the  indi- 
viduals of  his  species  are  susceptible, 
discriminate  them  from  each  other, 
making  that  incredible  variety  and  that 
infinity  of  difference  which  is  to  be 
found,  as  well  in  their  corporeal  facul- 
ties as  in  those  which  are  mental  or 
intellectual.  From  this  mobility,  more 


or  less  remarkable  in  each  human  being, 
results  wit,  sensibility,  imagination, 
taste,  &c.  For  the  present,  however, 
let  us  follow  the  operation  of  the  senses : 
let  us  examine  in  what  manner  they 
are  acted  upon  and  are  modified  by 
exterior  objects : — we  will  afterwards 
scrutinize  the  reaction  of  the  interior 
organ  or  brain. 

The  eyes  are  very  delicate,  very 
moveable  organs,  by  means  of  which 
the  sensation  of  light,  or  colour,  is 
experienced :  these  give  to  the  brain 
a  distinct  perception,  in  consequeuce 
of  which  man  forms  an  idea  generated 
by  the  action  of  luminous  or  coloured 
bodies :  as  soon '  as  the  eyelids  are 
opened,  the  retina  is  affected  in  a  pe- 
culiar manner ;  the  fluid,  the  fibres,  the 
nerves,  of  which  they  are  composed, 
are  excited  by  shocks  which  they  com- 
municate to  the  brain,  and  to  which 
they  delineate  the  images  of  the  bodies 
from  which  they  have  received  the 
impulse ;  by  this  means  an  idea  is 
acquired  of  the  colour,  the  size,  the 
form,  the  distance  of  these  bodies:  it 
is  thus  that  may  be  explained  the 
mechanism  of  sight. 

The  mobility  and  the  elasticity  of 
which  the  skin  is  rendered  susceptible 
by  the  fibres  and  nerves  which  form  its 
texture,  account  for  the  rapidity  with 
which  this  envelope  to  the  human  body 
is  affected  when  applied  to  any  other 
body :  by  their  agency  the  brain  has 
notice  of  its  presence,  of  its  extent, 
of  its  roughness,  of  its  smoothness,  of 
its  surface,  of  its  pressure,  of  its  pon- 
derosity, &c. — qualities  from  which 
the  brain  derives  distinct  perceptions, 
which  breed  in  it  a  diversity  of  ideas ; 
it  is  this  that  constitutes  the  touch. 

The  delicacy  of  the  membrane  by 
which  the  interior  of  the  nostrils  is 
covered,  renders  them  easily  suscepti- 
ble of  irritation,  even  by  the  invisible 
and  impalpable  corpuscles  that  emanate 
from  odorous  bodies:  by  this  means 
sensations  are  excited,  the  brain  has 
perceptions,  and  generates  ideas  :  it  is 
this  that  forms  the  sense  of  smelling. 

The  mouth,  filled  with  nervous,  sen- 
sible, moveable,  and  irritable  glands, 
saturated  with  juices  suitable  to  the 
dissolution  of  saline  substances,  is  af- 
fected in  a  very  lively  manner  by  the 
aliments  which  pass  through  it;  these 
glands  transmit  to  the  brain  the  impres- 


OP  THE  INTELLECT. 


57 


sions  received :  it  is  from  this  mecha- 
nism that  results  taste. 

The  ear,  whose  conformation  fits  it 
to  receive  the  various  impulses  of  air 
diversely  modified,  communicates  to 
the  brain  the  shocks  or  sensations; 
these  breed  the  perception  of  sound, 
and  generate  the  idea  of  sonorous 
bodies  :  it  is  this  that  constitutes  hear- 
ing. 

Such  are  the  only  means  by  which 
man  receives  sensations,  perceptions, 
ideas.  These  successive  modifications 
of  his  brain  are  effects  produced  by  ob- 
jects that  give  impulse  to  his  senses ; 
they  become  themselves  causes  pro- 
ducing in  his  mind  new  modifications, 
which  are  denominated  thought,  re- 
flection, memory,  imagination,  judg- 
ment, will,  action  ;  the  basis,  however, 
of  all  these  is  sensation. 

To  form  a  precise  notion  of  thought, 
it  will  be  requisite  to  examine  step  by 
step  what  passes  in  man  during  the 
presence  of  any  object  whatever.  Sup- 
pose, for  a  moment,  this  object  to  be  a 
peach :  this  fruit  makes,  at  the  first 
view,  two  different  impressions  on  his 
eyes ;  that  is  to  say,  it  produces  two 
modifications,  which  are  transmitted 
to  the  brain,  which  on  this  occasion  ex- 
periences two  new  perceptions,  has  two 
new  ideas  or  modes  of  existence,  de-* 
signaled  by  the  terms  colour  and  ro- 
tundity; in  consequence,  he  has  an 
idea  of  a  body  possessing  roundness 
and  colour :  if  he  places  his  hand  on 
this  fruit,  the  organ  of  feeling  having 
been  set  in  action,  his  hand  experiences 
three  new  impressions,  which  are  call- 
ed softness,  coolness,  weight,  from 
whence  result  three  new  perceptions 
in  the  brain,  and  consequently  three 
new  ideas :  if  he  approximates  this 
peach  to  his  nose,  the  organ  of  smell- 
ing receives  an  impulse,  which,  com- 
municated to  the  brain,  a  new  percep- 
tion arises,  by  which  he  acquires  a  new 
idea  called  odour:  if  he  carries  this 
fruit  to  his  mouth,  the.  organ  of  taste 
becomes  affected  in  a  very  lively  man- 
ner; this  impulse  communicated  to 
the  brain,  is  followed  by  a  perception 
that  generates  in  him  the  idea  of  fla- 
vour. In  reuniting  all  these  impres- 
sions, or  these  various  modifications 
of  his  organs,  which  haA'e  been  conse- 
quently transmitted  to  his  brain,  that 
is  to  say,  in  combining  the  different 

NO.  II.— 8 


sensations,  perceptions,  and  ideas,  that 
result  from  the  impulse  he  has  receiv- 
ed, he  has  the  idea  of  a  whole,  which 
he  designates  by  the  name  of  a  peach, 
with  which  he  can  then  occupy  his 
thoughts.* 

What  has  been  said  is  sufficient  to 
show  the  generation  of  sensations,  of 
perceptions,  of  ideas,  with  their  asso- 
ciations, or  connexion  in  the  brain :  it 
will  be  seen  that  these  various  modifi- 
cations are  nothing  more  than  the  con- 
sequence of  successive  impulsions, 
which  the  exterior  organs  transmit  to 
the  interior  organ,  which  enjoys  the 
faculty  of  thought,  that  is  to  say,  to 
feel  in  itself  the  different  modifica- 
tions it  has  received,  or  to  perceive 
the  various  ideas  which  it  has  genera- 
ted— to  combine  them — to  separate 
them — to-  extend  them — to  abridge 
them — to  compare  them — to  renew 
them,  &c.  From  whence  it  will  be 
seen,  that  thought  is  nothing  more  than 
the  perception  of  certain  modifications 
which  the  brain  either  gives  to  itself, 
or  has  received  from  exterior  objects. 

Indeed,  not  only  the  interior  organ 
perceives  the  modifications  it  receives 
from  without,  but  again  it  has  the  fa- 
culty of  modifying  itself — of  consider- 
ing the  changes  which  take  place  in  it, 
the  motion  by  which  it  is  agitated  in 
its  peculiar  operations,  from  which  it 
imbibes  new  perceptions,  new  ideas. 
It  is  the  exercise  of  this  power  to  fall 
back  upon  itself,  that  is  called  reflec- 
tion. 

From  this  it  will  appear,  that  for 
man  to  think  and  to  reflect,  is  to  feel, 
or  perceive  within  himself  the  impres- 


*  From  this  it  is  sufficiently  proved  that 
thought  has  a  commencement,  a  duration,  an 
end,  or  rather,  a  generation,  a  succession,  a 
dissolution,  like  all  the  other  modifications 
of  matter;  like  them,  thought  is  excited,  is 
determined,  is  increased,  is- divided,  is  com- 
pounded, is  simplified,  &c.  If,  therefore,  the 
soul,  or  the  principle  that  thinks,  be  indivisi- 
ble, how  does  it  happen  that  the  soul  has  the 
faculty  of  memory  and  of  forgetfulness ;  is 
capacitated  to  think  successively,  to  divide,  to 
abstract,  to  combine,  to  extend  its  ideas,  to 
retain  them,  to  lose  them?  How  can  it 
cease  to  think  1  If  forms  appear  divisible  in 
matter,  it  is  only  in  considering  them  by  ab- 
straction, after  the  method  of  geometricians ; 
but  this  divisibility  of  form  exists  not  in  nature, 
in  which  there  is  neither  a  point,  an  atom, 
nor  form  perfectly  regular  ;  it  must  therefore 
be  concluded,  that  the  forms  of  matter  are  not 
less  indivisible  than  thought. 


58 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


sions,  the  sensations,  the  ideas,  which 
have  been  furnished  to  his  brain  by 
those  objects  which  give  impulse  to  his 
senses  in  consequence  of  the  various 
changes  which  his  brain  produced  on 
jlself. 

I  Memory  is  the  faculty  which  the 
brain  has  of  renewing  in  itself  the  mo- 
difications it  has  received,  or  rather,  to 
restore  itself  to  a  state  similar  to  that 
in  which  it  has  been  placed  by  the 
sensations,  the  perceptions,  the  ideas, 
produced  by  exterior  objects,  in  the 
exact  order  it  received  them,  without 
any  new  action  on  the  part  of  these 
objects,  or  even  when  these  objects 
are  absent  $  the  brain  perceives  that 
these  modifications  assimilate  with 
those  it  formerly  experienced  in  the 
presence  of  the  objects  to  which  it  re- 
lates, or  attributes  them.  Memory  is 
faithful  when  these  modifications  are 
precisely  the  same ;  it  is  treacherous 
when  they  differ  from  those  which  the 
organs  have  exteriorly  experienced. 

Imagination  in  man  is  only  the  fa- 
culty which  the  brain  has  of  modifying 
itself,  or  of  forming  to  itself  new  per- 
ceptions upon  the  model  of  those  which 
it  has  anteriorly  received  through  the 
action  of  exterior  objects  on  the  senses. 
The  brain,  then,  does  nothing  more 
than  combine  ideas  which  it  has  al- 
ready formed,  and  which  it  recalls  to 
itself  to  form  a  whole,  or  a  collection 
of  modifications,  which  it  has  not  re- 
ceived, although  the  individual  ideas, 
or  the  parts  of  which  this  ideal  whole 
is  composed,  have  been  previously 
communicated  to  it./  It  is  thus,  man 
forms  to  himself  the  idea  of  Centaurs* 
of  HyppogriffsJ  of  Gods,J  and  De- 
mons. T|  By  memory,  the  brain  renews 
in  itself  the  sensations,  the  perceptions, 
the  ideas,  which  it  has  received,  and 
represents  to  itself  the  objects  which 
have  actually  .moved  its  organs.  By 
imagination  it  combines  them  various- 
ly; forms  objects  or  wholes  in  their 
place,  which  have  not  moved  its  organs, 
although  it  is  perfectly  acquainted  with 
the  elements  or  ideas  of  which  it  com- 
poses them.  It  is  thus  that  man,  by 
combining  a  great  number  of  ideas  bor- 

*  A  being  composed  of  a  man  and  a  horse, 
t  A  being  composed  of  a  horse  with  wings. 

*  A  nondescript! 

T  A  gentleman  with  two  horns,  a  tail,  and 
a  cloven  foot. 


rowed  from  himself,  such  as  justice, 
wisdom,  goodness,  intelligence,  &c., 
has,  by  the  aid  of  imagination,  formed 
an  imaginary  whole,  which  he  has  call- 
ed God. 

Judgment,  is  the  faculty  which  the 
brain  possesses  of  comparing  with  each 
other  the  modifications  it  receives,  the 
ideas  it  engenders,  or  which  it  has  the 
power  of  awakening  within  itself,  to 
the  end  that  it  may  discover  their  rela- 
tions or  their  effects. 
rtyill,  is  a  modification  of  the  brain, 
by  which  it  is  disposed  to  action,  that  is 
to  say,  to  give  such  an  impulse  to  the 
organs  of  the  body  as  can  induce  it  to 
act  in  a  manner  that  will  procure  for 
itself  what  is  requisite  to  modify  it  in  a 
mode  analogous  to  its  own  existence, 
or  to  enable  it  to  avoid  that  by  which 
it  can  be  injured.  To  will  is  to  be  dis- 
posed to  action.  The  exterior  objects, 
or  the  interior  ideas,  which  give  birth 
to  this  disposition,  are  called  motives, 
because  they  are  the  springs  or  move- 
ments which  determine  it  to  act,  that 
is  to  say,  which  give  play  to  the  organs 
of  the  body.  Thus  voluntary  actions 
are  the  motion  of  the  body,  determined 
by  the  modification  of  the  brain.  Fruit 
hanging  on  a  tree,  through  the  agency 
of  the  visual  organs  modifies  the  brain 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  dispose  the  arm 
to  stretch  itself  forth  to  cull  it ;  again 
it  modifies  it  in  another  manner,  by 
which  it  excites  the  hand  to  carry  it  to 
the  mouth. 

All  the  modifications  which  the  in- 
terior organ  or  the  brain  receives ;  all 
the  sensations — all  the  perceptions — 
all  the  ideas  that  are  generated  by  the 
objects  which  give  impulse  to  the 
senses,  or  which  it  renews  within  it- 
self by  its  own  peculiar  faculties,  are 
either  favourable  or  prejudicial  to  man's 
mode  of  existence,  whether  that  be 
transitory  or  habitual :  they  dispose  the 
interior  organ  to  action,  which  it  ex- 
ercises by  reason  of  its  own  peculiar 
energy :  this  action  is  not,  however, 
the  same  in  all  the  individuals  of  the 
human  species,  depending  much  on 
their  respective  temperaments.  From 
hence  the  passions  have  their  birth: 
these  are  more  or  less  violent :  they  are, 
however,  nothing  more  than  the  mo- 
tion of  the  will,  determined  by  the  ob- 
jects which  give  it  activity — conse- 
quently, composed  of  the  analogy  or 


OP  THE  INTELLECT. 


of  the  discordance  which  is  found 
between  these  objects  and  man's  pecu- 
liar mode  of  existence,  or  the  force  of 
his  temperament.  From  this  it  results, 
that  the  passions  are  modes  of  exist- 
ence or  modifications  of  the  brain, 
which  either  attract  or  repel  those  ob- 
jects by  which  man  is  surrounded  ; 
that  consequently  they  are  submitted 
in  their  action  to  the  physical  laws  of 
[attraction  and  repulsion. 

The  faculty  of  perceiving,  or  of  being 
modified,  as  well  by  itself  as  by  ex- 
terior objects,  which  the  brain  enjoys, 
is  sometimes  designated  by  the  term 
understanding.  To  the  assemblage 
of  the  various  faculties  of  which  this 
interior  organ  is  susceptible,  is  applied 
the  name  of  intelligence.  To  a  de- 
termined mode,  in  which  the  brain  ex- 
ercises the  faculties  peculiar  to  itself, 
is  given  the  appellation  of  reason. 
The  dispositions,  or  the  modifications 
of  the  brain,  some  of  them  constant, 
others  transitory,  which  give  impulse 
to  the  beings  of  the  human  species, 
causing  them  to  act,  are  styled  wit, 
•wisdom,  goodness,  prudence,  virtue, 
$c. 

In  short,  as  there  will  be  an  oppof^ 
tunity  presently  to  prove,  all  the  intel- 
lectual faculties,  that  is  to  say,  all  the 
modes  of  action  attributed  to  the  soul, 
may  he  reduced  to  the  modifications, 
to  the  qualities,  to  the  modes  of  exist- 
ence, to  the  changes  produced  by  the 
motion  of  the  brain,  which  is  visibly 
in  man  the  seat  of  feeling — the  princi-l 
pie  of  all  his  actions.  .These  modif> 
cations  are  to  be  attributed  to  the  ob- 
jects that  strike  on  his  senses ;  of 
which  the  impression  is  transmitted  to 
the  brain,  or  rather  to  the  ideas  which 
the  perceptions  caused  by  the  action 
of  these  objects  on  his  senses  have 
there  generated,  and  which  it  has  the 
faculty  to  reproduce.  This  brain 
jioves  itself  in  its  turn,  reacts  upon 
.tself,  gives  play  to  the  organs,  which 
concentrate  themselves  in  it,  or  which 
rather  are  nothing  more  than  an  exten- 
sion of  its  own  peculiar  substance.  It 
is  thus  the  concealed  motion  of  the  in- 
tenor  organ  renders  itself  sensible  by 
outward  and  visible  signs.  The  brain, 
affected  by  a  modification  which  is 
called  fear,  diffuses  a  paleness  over 
the  countenance,  excites  a  tremulous 
motion  in  the  limbs,  called  trembling. 


The  brain,  affected  by  a  sensation  of 
griff,  causes  tears  to  flow  from  the 
eyes,  even  without  being  moved  by  any 
exterior  object;  an  idea  which  it  re- 
traces with  great  strength,  suffices  to 
give  it  very  lively  modifications,  which 
visibly  have  an  influence  on  the  whole 
frame. 

In  all  this  nothing  rriore  is  to  be  per- 
ceived than  the  same  substance  which 
acts  diversely  on  the  various  parts  of 
the  body.  If  it  be  objected,  that  this 
mechanism  does  not  sufficiently  ex- 
plain the  principles  of  the  motion,  or 
the  faculties  of  the  soul ;  we  reply, 
that  it  is  in  the  same  situation  as  all 
the  other  bodies  of  nature,  in  which 
the  most  simpje  motion,  the  most  ordi- 
nary phenomena,  the  most  common 
modes  of  action,  are  inexplicable  mys- 
teries, of  which  we  shall  never  be  able 
to  fathom  the  first  principles.  Indeed, 
how  can  we  flatter  ourselves  we  shall 
ever  be  enabled  to  compass  the  true 
principle  of  that  gravity  by  which  a 
stone  falls  ?  Are  we  acquainted  with 
the  mechanism  which  produces  attrac- 
tion in  some  substances,  repulsion  in 
others  ?  Are  we  in  a  condition  to 
:xplain  the  communication  of  motion 
from  one  body  to  another  1  But  it  may 
be  fairly  asked ;  are  the  difficulties  that 
occur,  when  attempting  to  explain  the 
:nanner  in  which  the  soul  acts,  removed, 
by  making  it  a  spiritual  being,  a  sub- 
stance of  which  we  have  not,  nor  can- 
not form  one  idea,  which  consequently 
must  bewilder  all  the  notions  we  are 
capable  of  forming  to  ourselves  of  this 
jeing?  Let  us  then  be  contented  to^i 
mow  that  the  soul  moves  itself,  modi- 
fies  itself,  in  consequence  of  material 
causes,  which  act  upon  it,  which  give 
it  activity ;  from  whence  the  conclusion 
may  be  said  to  flow  consecutively,  that 
all  its  operations,  all  its  faculties,  prove 
':hat  it  is  itself  material. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Of  the  Diversity  of  the  Intellectual  Faculties; 
they  depend  on  Physical  Causes,  as  do  tkeir 
Moral  Qualities.  The  Natural  Principles 
of  Society.— Of  Morals.— Of  Politics. 

NATURE  is  under  the  necessity  to 
diversify  all  her  works.  Elementary 
natter,  different  in  its  essence,  must 
necessarily  form  different  beings,  va- 


GO 


OP  THE  INTELLECT. 


rious  in  their  combinations,  in  their 
properties,  in  their  modes  of  action,  in 
their  manner  of  existence.  There  is 
not,  neither  can  there  be,  two  beings, 
two  combinations,  which  are  mathe- 
matically and  rigorously  the  same ; 
because  the  place,  the  circumstances, 
the  relations,  the  proportions,  the  modi- 
fications, never  being  exactly  alike,  the 
beings  that  result  can  never  bear  a 
perfect  resemblance  to  each  other :  and 
their  modes  of  action  must  of  necessity 
vary  in  something,  even  when  we  be- 
lieve we  find  between  them  the  greatest 
conformity. 

In  consequence  of  this  principle, 
which  every  thing  we  see  conspires 
to  prove  to  be  a  truth,  there  are  not 
two  individuals  of  the  human  species, 
who  have  precisely  the  same  traits ; 
who  think  exactly  in  the  same  manner; 
who  view  things  under  the  same  iden- 
tical point  of  sight ;  who  have  decidedly 
the  same  ideas ;  consequently  no  two 
of  them  have  uniformly  the  same  sys- 
tem of  conduct.  The  visible  organs  of 
man,  as  well  as  his  concealed  organs, 
have  indeed  some  analogy,  some  com- 
mon points  of  resemblance,  some  gene- 
ral conformity,  which  makes  them 
appear,  when  viewed  in  the  gross,  to 
be  affected  in  the  same  manner  by 
certain  causes ;  but  the  difference  is 
infinite  in  the  detail.  The  human  soul 
may  be  compared  to  those  instruments 
of  which  the  chords,  already  diversified 
in  themselves  by  the  manner  in  which 
they  have  been  spun,  are  also  strung 
upon  different  notes :  struck  by  the 
same  impulse,  each  chord  gives  forth 
the  sound  that  is  peculiar  to  itself,  that 
is  to  say,  that  which  depends  on  its 
texture,  its  tension,  its  volume,  on  the 
momentary  state  in  which  it  is  placed 
by  the  circumambient  air.  It  is  this 
that  produces  the  diversified  spectacle, 
the  varied  scene,  which  the  moral  world 
offers  to  our  view :  it  is  from  this  that 
results  the  striking  contrariety  that  is 
to  be  found  in  the  minds,  in  the  facul- 
ties, in  the  passions,  in  the  energies,  in 
the  taste,  in  the  imagination,  in  the 
ideas,  in  the  opinions  of  man :  this 
diversity  is  as  great  as  that  of  his 
physical  powers :  like  them  it  depends 
on  his  temperament,  which  is  as  much 
varied  as  his  physiognomy.  This  va- 
riety gives  birth  to  that  continual  series 
of  action  and  reaction  which  constitutes 


the  life  of  the  moral  world :  from  this 
discordance  results  the  harmony  which 
at  once  maintains  and  preserves  the 
human  race. 

The  diversity  found  among  the  indi- 
viduals of  the  human  species,  causes 
inequalities  between  man  and  man : 
this  inequality  constitutes  the  support 
of  society.  If  all  men  were  equal  in 
their  bodily  powers,  in  their  mental 
talents,  they  would  not  have  any  occa- 
sion for  each  other :  it  is  the  variation 
of  his  faculties,  the  inequality  which 
this  places  him  in  with  regard  to  his 
fellows,  that  renders  man  necessary  to 
man :  without  these  he  would  live  by 
himself,  he  would  remain  an  isolated 
being.  From  whence  it  may  be  per- 
ceived that  this  inequality,  of  which 
man  so  often  complains  without  cause ; 
this  impossibility  each  man  finds  when 
in  an  isolated  state,  when  left  to  him- 
self, when  unassociated  with  his  fellow 
men,  to  labour  efficaciously  to  his  own 
welfare,  to  make  his  own  security,  to 
ensure  his  own  conservation,  places  him 
in  the  happy  situation  of  associating 
with  his  like,  of  depending  on  his  fellow 
associates,  of  meriting  their  succour, 
of  propitiating  them  to  his  views,  of 
attracting  their  regard,  of  calling  in 
their  aid  to  chase  away,  by  common 
and  united  efforts,  that  which  would 
have  the  power  to  trouble  or  derange 
the  order  of  his  existence.  In  conse- 
quence of  man's  diversity  and  of  the 
inequality  that  results,  the  weaker  is 
obliged  to  seek  the  protection  of  the 
stronger :  this,  in  his  turn,  recurs  to  the 
understanding,  to  the  talents,  to  the 
industry  of  the  weaker,  whenever  his 
judgment  points  out  he  can  be  useful 
to  him :  this  natural  inequality  furnishes 
the  reason  why  nations  distinguish 
those  citizens  who  have  rendered  their 
country  eminent  services ;  and  it  is 
in  consequence  of  his  exigencies  that 
man  honours,  that  he  recompenses 
those  whose  understanding,  whose  good 
deeds,  whose  assistance,  whose  virtues, 
have  procured  for  him  real  or  supposed 
advantages,  pleasures,  or  agreeable  sen- 
sations of  any  sort :  it  is  by  this  means 
that  genius  gains  an  ascendency  over 
the  mind  of  man,  and  obliges  a  whole 
people  to  acknowledge  its  power.  Thus, 
the  diversity,  the  inequality  of  the  facul- 
ties, as  well  corporeal,  as  mental  or  in- 
tellectual, render  man  necessary  to  his 


OP  THE  INTELLECT. 


Gl 


fellow  man,  makes  him  a  social  being, 
and  incontestably  proves  to  him  the 
necessity  of  morals. 

According  to  this  diversity  of  facul- 
ties, the  individuals  of  the  human  spe- 
cies are  divided  into  different  classes, 
each  in  proportion  to  the  effects  pro- 
duced, to  the  different  qualities  that 
may  be  remarked :  all  these  varieties 
in  man  flow  from  the  individual  pro- 
perties of  his  mind,  or  from  the  particu- 
lar modification  of  his  brain.  It  is  thus 
that  wit,  imagination,  sensibility,  ta- 
lents, &c.  diversify  to  infinity  the  differ- 
ences that  are  to  be  found  in  man.  It 
is  thus  that  some  are  called  good,  others 
wicked ;  some  are  denominated  virtu- 
ous, others  vicious ;  some  are  ranked  as 
learned,  others  as  ignorant ;  some  are 
considered  reasonable,  others  unreason- 
able, &c. 

If  all  the  various  faculties  attributed 
to  the  soul  are  examined,  it  will  be 
found  that  like  those  of  the  body  they 
are  to  be  ascribed  to  physical  causes, 
to  which  it  will  be  very  easy  to  recur. 
It  will  be  found  that  the  powers  of  the 
soul  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  body ; 
that  they  always  depend  on  the  organi- 
zation of  this  body,  on  its  peculiar 
properties,  on  the  permanent  or- transi- 
tory modifications  that  it  undergoes ; 
in  a  word,  on  its  temperament. 

Temperament,  is,  in  each  individual, 
the  habitual  state  in  which  he  finds  the 
fluids  and  the  solids  of  which  his  body 
is  composed.  This  temperament  varies 
by  reason  of  the  elements  or  matter  that 
predominates  in  him;  inconsequence  of 
the  different  combinations,  of  the  various 
modifications,  which  this  matter,  diversi- 
fied in  itself,  undergoes  in  his  machine. 
T  hus,  i  n  one  the  blood  is  superabundant ; 
in  another,  the  bile ;  in  a  third,  phlegm, 
&c. 

It  is  from  nature — from  his  parents — 
from  causes,  which  from  the  first  mo- 
ment of  his  existence  have  unceasingly 
modified  him,  that  man  derives  his  tem- 
perament. It  is  in  his  mother's  womb 
that  he  has  attracted  the  matter  which, 
during  his  whole  life,  shall  have  an 
influence  on  his  intellectual  faculties — 
on  his  energies — on  his  passions — on 
his  conduct.  The  very  nourishment  he 
takes,  the  quality  of  the  air  he  respires, 
the  climate  he  inhabits,  the  education 
he  receives,  the  ideas  that  are  presented 
to  him,  the  opinions  he  imbibes,  modify 


this  temperament.  As  these  circum- 
stances can  never  be  rigorously  the 
same  in  every  point  for  any  two  men, 
it  is  by  no  means  surprising  that  such 
an  amazing  variety,  so  great  a  contra- 
riety, should  be  found  in  man,  or  that 
there  should  exist  as  many  different 
temperaments  as  there  are  individuals 
in  the  human  species. 

Thus,  although  man  may  bear  a  gene- 
ral resemblance,  he  differs  essentially, 
as  well  by  the  texture  of  his  fibres,  the 
disposition  of  his  nerves,  as  by  the 
nature,  the  quality,  the  quantity  of  mat- 
ter that  gives  them  play,  and  sets  his 
organs  in  motion.  Man,  already  differ- 
ent from  his  fellow,  by  the  elasticity  of 
his  fibres,  the  tension  of  his  nerves, 
becomes  still  more  distinguished  by  a 
variety  of  other  circumstances:  he  is 
more  active,  more  robust,  when  he 
receives  nourishing  aliments,  when  he 
drinks  wine,  when  he  takes  exercise ; 
whilst  another,  who  drinks  nothing  but 
water,  who  takes  less  juicy  nourish- 
ment, who  languishes  in  idleness,  shall 
be  sluggish  and  feeble. 

All  these  causes  have  necessarily  an 
influence  on  the  mind,  on  the  passions, 
on  the  will,  in  a  word,  on  what  are 
called  the  intellectual  faculties.  Thus, 
it  may  be  observed,  that  a  man  of  a  san- 
guine constitution  is  commonly  lively  r 
ingenious,  full  of  imagination,  passion- 
ate, voluptuous,  enterprising ;  whilst 
the  phlegmatic  man  is  dull,  of  a  heavy 
understanding,  slow  of  conception,  in- 
active, difficult  to  be  moved,  pusillani- 
mous, without  imagination,  or  possess- 
ing it  in  a  less  lively  degree,  incapable 
of  taking  any  strong  measures,  or  of 
willing  resolutely. 

If  experience  was  consulted  in  the 
room  of  prejudice,  the  physician  would 
collect  from  morals  the  key  to  the 
human  heart :  and  in  curing  the  body, 
he  would  sometimes  be  assured  of 
curing  the  mind.  Man,  in  making  a 
spiritual  substance  of  his  soul,  has 
contented  himself  with  administering 
to  it  spiritual  remedies,  which  either 
have  no  influence  over  his  tempera- 
ment, or  do  it  an  injury.  The  doctrine 
of  the  spirituality  of  the  soul  has  ren- 
dered morals  a  conjectural  science,  that 
does  not  furnish  a  knowledge  of  the 
true  motives  which  ought  to  be  put  in 
activity  in  order  to  influence  man  to 
his  welfare.  If,  calling  experience  to 


62 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


his   assistance,   man   sought  out   the 
elements  which  form  the  basis  of  his 
temperament,  or  of  the  greater  numbe 
of  the  individuals  composing  a  nation 
he  would  then  discover  what  would  be 
most  proper  for  him,  that  which  couk 
be  most  convenient  to  his   mode  ol 
existence,  which  could  most  conduce 
to  his  true  interest ; — what  laws  woulc 
be  necessary  to  his  happiness — what 
institutions  would  be  most  useful  for 
him — what  regulations  would  be  most 
beneficial.     In  short,  morals  and  poli- 
tics would  be  equally  enabled  to  draw 
from  materialism  advantages  which 
the  dogma   of  spirituality  can  never 
supply,  of  which  it  even  precludes  the 
idea.     Man  will  ever  remain  a  mystery 
to  those  who  shall  obstinately  persist 
in  viewing  him  with  eyes  prepossessed 
by  theology,  or  to  those  who  shall  per- 
tinaciously attribute  his  actions  to  a 
principle  of  which  it  is  impossible  to 
form  to  themselves  any  distinct  idea. 
When  man  shall  be  seriously  inclined 
to  understand  himself,  let  him  sedu- 
lously endeavour  to  discover  the  matter 
that  enters  into  his  combination,  which 
constitutes  his  temperament ;  these  dis- 
coveries will  furnish  him  with  the  clue 
to  the  nature  of  his  desires,  to  the  qua- 
lity of  his  passions,  to  the  bent  of  his 
inclinations,  and  will   enable   him  to 
foresee  his  conduct  on  given  occasions ; 
will  indicate  the  remedies  that  may  be 
successfully  employed  to  correct  the 
defects  of  a  vicious  organization  and 
of  a  temperament  as  injurious  to  him- 
self as  to  the  society  of  which  he  is  a 
member. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that 
man's  temperament  is  capable  of  being 
corrected,  of  being  modified,  of  being 
changed,  by  causes  as  physical  as  the 
matter  of  which  it  is  constituted.  We 
are  all  in  some  measure  capable  of 
forming  our  own  temperament :  a  man 
of  a  sanguine  constitution,  by  taking 
less  juicy  nourishment,  by  abating  its 
quantity,  by  abstaining  from  strong 
liquor,  &c.,  may  achieve  the  correction 
of  the  nature,  the  quality,  the  quantity, 
the  tendency,  the  motion  of  the  fluids, 
which  predominate  in  his  machine. 
A  bilious  man,  or  one  who  is  melan- 
choly, may,  by  the  aid  of  certain  reme- 
dies, diminish  the  mass  of  this  bilious 
fluid;  he  may  correct  the  blemish  of 
his  humours  by  the  assistance  of  exer- 


cise; he  may  dissipate  his  gloom  by 
the  gaiety  which  results  from  increased 
motion.  A  European  transplanted  into 
Hindostan  will  by  degrees  become  quite 
a  different  man  in  his  humours,  in  his 
ideas,  in  his  temperament,  and  in  his 
character. 

Although  but  few  experiments  have 
been  made  with  a  view  to  learn  what 
constitutes  the  temperament  of  man, 
there  are  still  enough  if  he  would  but 
deign  to  make  use  of  them,  or  if  he 
would  vouchsafe  to  apply  to  useful 
purposes  the  little  experience  he  has 
gleaned.  It  would  appear,  speaking 
generally,  that  the  igneous  principle 
which  chymists  designate  under  the 
name  of  phlogiston,  or  inflammable 
matter,  is  that  which  in  man  yields 
him  the  most  active  life,  furnishes  him 
with  the  greatest  energy,  affords  the 
greatest  mobility  to  his  frame,  supplies 
the  greatest  spring  to  his  organs,  gives 
the  greatest  elasticity  to  his  fibres,  the 
greatest  tension  to  his  nerves,  the  great- 
est rapidity  to  his  fluids.  From  these 
causes,  which  are  entirely  material, 
commonly  result  the  dispositions  or 
faculties,  called  sensibility,  wit,  ima- 
gination, genius,  vivacity,  &c.,  which 
give  the  tone  to  the  passions,  to  the 
will,  to  the  moral  actions  of  man.  In 
this  sense,  it  is  with  great  justice  we 
apply  the  expressions,  "  warmth  of 
soul,"  "  ardency  of  imagination,"  "  fire 
of  genius,"  &c.* 

It  is  this  fiery  element,  diffused  in 
different  doses,  distributed  in  various 
proportions,  through  the  beings  of  the 
human  species,  that  sets  man  in  motion, 
gives  him  activity,  supplies  him  with 
animal  heat,  and  which,  if  we  may  be 
allowed  the  expression,  renders  him 
more  or  less  alive.  This  igneous  mat- 
ter, so  active,  so  subtile,  dissipates 
itself  with  great  facility,  then  requires 
to  be  reinstated  in  his  system  by  means 
of  aliments  that  contain  it,  which  there- 
jy  become  proper  to  restore  his  machine, 
;o  lend  new  warmth  to  the  brain,  to 
urnish  it  with  the  elasticity  requisite 

*  It  would  not  be  unreasonable  to  suppose, 
hat  what  physicians  call  the  nervous  fluid, 
which  so  promptly  gives  notice  to  the  brain 
of  all  that  happens  to  the  body,  is  nothing 
more  than  electric  matter;  that  the  various 
>roportions  of  this  matter,  diffused  through 
nis  system,  is  the  cause  of  that  great  diversity 
to  be  discovered  in  the  human  being,  and  in 
the  faculties  he  possesses. 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


63 


iO  the  performance  of  those  functions 
which  are  called  intellectual.  It  is  this 
ardent  matter,  contained  in  wine,  in 
strong  liquor,  that  gives  to  the  most 
torpid,  to  the  dullest,  to  the  most  slug- 
gish man,  a  vivacity,  of  which,  without 
it,  he  would  be  incapable,  and  which 
urges  even  the  coward  on  to  battle. 
When  this  fiery  element  is  too  abundant 
in  man,  whilst  he  is  labouring  under 
certain  diseases,  it  plunges  him  into 
delirium ;  when  it  is  in  too  weak,  or 
in  too  small  a  quantity,  he  swoons,  he 
sinks  to  the  earth.  This  igneous  matter 
diminishes  in  his  old  age,  it  totally 
dissipates  at  his  death.* 

If  the  intellectual  faculties  of  man, 
or  his  moral  qualities,  be  examined 
according  to  the  principles  here  laid 
down,  the  conviction  must  be  com- 
plete, that  they  are  to  be  attributed  to 
material  causes,  which  have  an  influ- 
ence more  or  less  marked,  either  transi- 
tory or  durable  over  his  peculiar  organi- 
zation. But  where  does  he  derive  this 
organization  except  it  be  from  the  pa- 
rents from  whom  he  receives  the  ele- 
ments of  a  machine  necessarily  analo- 
gous to  their  own  ?  From  whence  does 
he  derive  the  greater  or  less  quantity 
of  igneous  matter,  or  vivifying  heat, 
which  gives  the  tone  to  his  mental 
qualities  ?  It  is  from  the  mother,  who 
bore  him  in  her  womb,  who  has  com- 
municated to  him  a  portion  of  that  fire 
with  which  she  was  herself  animated, 
which  circulated  through  her  veins  with 
Her  blood:  it  is  from  the  aliments  that 
have  nourished  him :  it  is  from  the  cli- 
mate he  inhabits :  it  is  from  the  atmo- 
sphere that  surrounds  him :  for,  all  these 
causes  have  an  influence  over  his  fluids, 
over  his  solids,  and  decide  on  his  natu- 
ral dispositions.  In  examining  these 
dispositions,  from  whence  his  faculties 
depend,  it  will  ever  be  found  that  they 
are  corporeal  and  material. 

The  most  prominent  of  these  dis- 
positions in  man,  is  that  physical  sensi- 
bility from  which  flows  all  his  intel- 

*  If  we  reflect  a  little  we  shall  find  that 
heat  is  the  principle  of  life.  It  is  by  means  of 
heat  that  beings  pass  from  inaction  into  mo- 
tion— from  repose  into  fermentation — from 
a  state  of  torpor  into  that  of  active  life.  This 
is  proved  by  the  egg,  which  heat  hatches  into 
a  chicken ;  and  this  example,  among  thou- 
sands which  we  might  cite,  must  suffice  to 
establish  the  fact,  that  without  heat,  there  is 
no  generation. 


lectual  or  moral  qualities.  To  feel, 
according  to  what  has  been  said,  is  to 
receive  an  impulse,  to  be  moved,  and 
to  have  a  consciousness  of  the  changes 
operated  on  his  system.  To  have  sensi- 
bility, is  nothing  more  than  to  be  so 
constituted  as  to  feel  promptly,  and  in, 
a  very  lively  manner,  the  impressions 
of  those  objects  which  act  upon  him. 
A  sensible  soul,  is  only  man's  brain 
disposed  in  a  mode  to  receive  the  motion 
communicated  to  it  with  facility  and 
with  promptness,  by  giving  an  instan- 
taneous impulse  to  the  organs.  Thus, 
the  man  is  called  sensible,  whom  the 
sight  of  the  distressed,  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  unhappy,  the  recital  of  a 
melancholy  tale,  the  witnessing  of  an 
afflicting  catastrophe,  or  the  idea  of  a 
dreadful  spectacle,  touches  in  so  lively 
a  manner  as  to  enable  the  brain  to  give 
play  to  his  lachrymal  organs,  which 
cause  him  to  shed  tears ;  a  sign  by 
which  we  recognise  the  effect  of  ex- 
treme anguish  in  the  human  •  being. 
The  man  in  whom  musical  sounds 
excite  a  degree  of  pleasure,  or  produce 
very  remarkable  effects,  is  said  to  have 
a  sensible  or  a  fine  ear.  In  short,  when 
it  is  perceived  that  eloquence, — the 
beauty  of  the  arts, — the  various  objects 
that  strike  his  senses,  excite  in  him 
very  lively  emotions,  he  is  said  to  pos- 
sess a  soul  full  of  sensibility.f 

Wit  is  a  consequence  of  this  physical 
sensibility;  indeed,  wit  is  nothing  more 
than  the  facility  which  some  beings  of 
the  human  species  possess  of  seizing 
with  promptitude,  of  developing  with 
quickness  a  whole,  with  its  different 
relations  to  other  ob:ects.  Genius,  is 
the  facility  with  which  some  men  com- 
prehend this  whole,  and  its  various 
relations,  when  they  are  difficult  to  be 
known,  but  useful  to  forward  great  and 
mighty  projects.  Wit,  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  piercing  eye,  which  perceived 
things  quickly.  Genius,  is  an  eye  that 
I  comprehends  at  one  view  ail  the  points 


t  Compassion  depends  on  physical  sensi- 
bility, which  is  never  the  same  in  all  men. 
How  absurd,  then,  to  make  compassion  the 
source  of  all  our  moral  ideas,  and  of  those 
feelings  which  we  experience  for  our  lellow 
creatures.  Not  only  all  men  are  not  alike 
sensible,  but  there  are  many  in  whom  sensi- 
bility has  not  been  developed — such  as  in 
kings,  priests,  statesmen, — 
"  And  the  hired  bravoes  who  defend 

The  tyrant's  throne— the  bullies  of  his  fear !" 


64 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


of  an  extended  horizon,  or  what  the 
French  term  coup  (Vce.il.  True  wit, 
is  that  which  perceives  objects  with 
their  relations,  such  as  they  really  are. 
False  wit,  is  that  which  catches  at 
relations  which  do  not  apply  to  the 
object,  or  which  arises  from  some 
blemish  in  the  organization.  True  wit 
resembles  the  direction  on  a  hand-post. 

Imagination,  is  the  faculty  of  com- 
bining with  promptitude  ideas  or  images ; 
it  consists  in  the  power  man  possesses 
of  reproducing  with  ease  the  modifica- 
tions of  his  brain ;  of  connecting  them, 
and  of  attaching  them  to  the  objects  to 
which  they  are  suitable.  When  imagi- 
nation does  this,  it  gives  pleasure  ;  its 
fictions'  are  approved,  it  embellishes 
nature,  it  is  a  proof  of  the  soundness 
of  the  mind,  it  aids  truth:  when,  on 
the  contrary,  it  combines  ideas  not 
formed  to  associate  themselves  with 
each  other ;  when  it  paints  nothing 
but  disagreeable  phantoms,  it  disgusts. 
Thus  poetry,  calculated  to  render  nature 
more  pathetic,  more  touching,  pleases 
when  it  adorns  the  object  it  portrays 
with  all  those  beauties  with  which  it 
can  with  propriety  be  associated.  True, 
it  only  creates  ideal  beings,  but  as  they 
move  us  agreeably,  we  forgive  the  illu- 
sions it  has  held  forth  on  account  of  the 
pleasure  we  have  reaped  from  them. 
The  hideous  chimeras  of  superstition 
displease,  because  they  are  nothing 
more  than  the  productions  of  a  dis- 
tempered imagination,  which  can  only 
awaken  afflicting  sensations. 

Imagination,  when  it  wanders,  pro- 
duces fanaticism — religious  terrours — 
inconsiderate  zeal — phrensy — the  most 
enormous  crimes.  When  imagination 
is  well  regulated,  it  gives  birth  to  a 
strong  predilection  for  useful  objects — 
an  energetic  passion  for  virtue — an 
enthusiastic  love  of  our  country — the 
most  ardent  friendship :  the  man  who 
is  divested  of  imagination,  is  commonly 
one  in  whose  torpid  constitution  phlegm 
predominates  over  that  sacred  fire, 
which  is  the  great  principle  of  his 
mobility,  of  his  warmth  of  sentiment, 
and  which  vivifies  all  his  intellectual 
faculties'.  There  must  be  enthusiasm 
for  transcendent  virtues  as  well  as  for 
atrocious  crimes.  Enthusiasm  places 
the  soul,  or  brain,  in  a  state  similar  to 
that  of  drunkenness  ;  both  the  one  and 
the  other  excite  in  man  that  rapidity  of 


motion  which  is  approved  when  good 
results,  but  which  is  called  folly,  de- 
lirium, crime,  fury,  when  it  produces 
nothing  but  disorder. 

The  mind  is  out  of  order,  it  is  incapa- 
ble of  judging  sanely,  and  the  imagina- 
tion is  badly  regulated,  whenever  man's 
organization  is  not  so  modified  as  to 
perform  its  functions  with  precision. 
At  each  moment  of  his  existence  man 
gathers  experience  ;  every  sensation  he 
has,  furnishes  a  fact  that  deposites  in  his 
brain  an  idea,  which  his  memory  recalls 
with  more  or  less  fidelity :  these  facts 
connect  themselves,  these  ideas  are 
associated,  and  their  chain  constitutes 
experience  and  science.  Knowledge"^ 
is  that  consciousness  which  arises  from 
reiterated  experience,  made  with  pre- 
cision of  the  sensations,  of  the  ideas, 
of  the  effects  which  an  object  is  capable 
of  producing,  either  in  ourselves  or  in 
others.  A1J  science  must  be  founded, 
on  truth.  Truth  itself  rests  on  the 
constant  and  faithful  relation  of  our 
senses.  Thus  truth  is  that  conformity 
or  perpetual  affinity  which  man's  senses, 
when  well  constituted,  when  aided  by 
experience,  discover  to  him,  between 
the  objects  of  which  he  has  a  know- 
ledge, and  the  qualities  with  which  he 
clothes  them.  In  short,  truth  is  nothing 
more  than  the  just,  the  precise  associa- 
tion of  his  ideas.  But  how  can  he, 
without  experience,  assure  himself  of 
the  accuracy  of  this  association  ?  How, 
if  he  do  not  reiterate  this  experience, 
can  he  compare  it?  If  his  senses  are 
vitiated,  how  is  it  possible  they  can 
convey  to  him,  with  precision,  the 
sensations,  the  facts,  with  which  they 
store  his  brain  1  It  is  only  by  multi- 
plied, by  diversified,  by  repeated  expe- 
rience, that  he  is  enabled  to  rectify  the 
errours  of  his  first  conceptions. 

Man  is  in  errour  every  time  his  organs, 
either  originally  defective  in  their  na- 
ture, or  vitiated  by  the  durable  or  transi- 
tory modifications  which  they  undergo, 
render  him  incapable  of  judging  soundly 
of  objects.  Errour  consists  in  the  false 
association  of  ideas,  by  which  qualities 
are  attributed  to  objects  which  they  do 
not  possess.  Man  is  in  errour,  when 
he  supposes  those  beings  really  to  have 
existence  which  have  no  local  habita- 
tion but  in  his  own  imagination :  he  is 
in  errour,  when  he  associates  the  idea 
of  happiness  with  objects  capable  of 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


65 


injuring  him,  whether  immediately  or 
by  remote  consequences  which  he  can- 
not foresee. 

But  how  can  he  foresee  effects  of 
which  he  has  not  yet  any  knowledge  ? 
It  is  by  the  aid  of  experience.  By  the 
assistance  which  this  experience  affords 
it  is  known,  that  analogous,  or  like 
causes,  produce  analogous  or  like  ef- 
fects: memory,  by  recalling  these  effects, 
enables  him  to  form  a  judgment  of  those 
he  may  expect,  whether  it  be  from  the 
same  causes,  or  from  causes  that  bear 
a  relation  to  those  of  which  he  has  al- 
ready experienced  the  action.  From 
this  it  will  appear,  that  prudence,  fore- 
sight, are  faculties  that  grow  out  of 
experience.  If  he  has  felt  that  fire 
excited  in  his  organs  a  painful  sensa- 
tion, this  experience  suffices  him  to  fore- 
see that  fire  so  applied,  will  eventually 
excite  the  same  sensations.  If  he  has 
discovered  that  certain  actions,  on  his 
part,  stirred  up  the  hatred,  and  elicited 
the  contempt  of  others,  this  experience 
sufficiently  enables  him  to  foresee, 
that  every  time  he  shall  act  in  a  similar 
manner,  he  will  be  either  hated  or 
despised. 

The  faculty  man  has  of  gathering 
experience,  of  recalling  it  to  himself, 
of  foreseeing  effects,  by  which  he  is 
enabled  to  avoid  whatever  may  have 
the  power  to  injure  him,  or  procure 
that  which  may  be  useful  to  the  con- 
servation of  his  existence  and  his  felici- 
ty, which  is  the  sole  end  of  all  his 
actions,  whether  corporeal  or  mental, 
constitutes  that  which  in  one  word  is 
designated  under  the  name  of  reason. 
Sentiment,  imagination,  temperament, 
may  be  capable  of  leading  him  astray ; 
may  have  the  power  to  deceive  him ; 
but  experience  and  reflection  will  place 
him  again  in  the  right  road,  and  teach 
him  what  can  really  conduct  him  to 
happiness.  From  this  it  will  appear, 
that  reason  is  man's  nature  modified 
by  experience,  moulded  by  judgment, 
regulated  by  reflection :  it  supposes  a 
sober  temperament,  a  sound  mind,  a 
well  regulated  imagination,  a  know- 
ledge of  truth  grounded  upon  tried  expe- 
rience ;  in  fact,  prudence  and  foresight : 
and  this  proves,  that,  although  nothing 
is  more  common  than  the  assertion 
that  man  is  a  reasonable  bein<r,  yet 
there  are  but  a  very  small  number  of 
t he  individuals  who  compose  the  human 

No.  III.— 9 


species  who  really  enjoy  the  faculty  of 
reason,  or  who  combine  the  dispositions 
and  the  experience  by  which  it  is  con- 
stituted. 

It  ought  not  then  to  excite  surprise 
that  the  individuals  of  the  human  race 
who  are  in  a  capacity  to  make  true 
experience,  are  so  few  in  number. 
Man,  when  he  is  born,  brings  with 
him  organs  susceptible  of  receiving 
impulse,  and  of  collecting  experience ; 
but  whether  it  be  from  the  vice  of  his 
system,  the  imperfection  of  his  organi- 
zation, or  from  those  causes  by  which 
it  is  modified,  his  experience  is  false, 
his  ideas  are  confused,  his  images  are 
badly  associated,  his  judgment  is  erro- 
neous, his  brain  is  saturated  with  vicious 
systems,  which  necessarily  have  an  in- 
fluence over  his  conduct,  and  continu- 
ally disturb  his  reason. 

Man's  senses,  as  it  has  been  shown, 
are  the  only  means  by  which  he  is  en- 
abled to  ascertain  whether  his  opinions 
are  true  or  false,  whether  his  conduct 
is  useful  to  himself,  and  whether  it  is 
advantageous  or  disadvantageous.  But 
that  his  senses  may  be  competent  to 
make  a  faithful  relation,  or  be  in  a  ca- 
pacity to  impress  true  ideas  on  his 
brain,  it  is  requisite  they  should  be 
sound  ;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  state  ne- 
cessary to  maintain  his  existence  in 
that  order  which  is  suitable  to  his  pre- 
servation and  his  permanent  felicity. 
It  is  also  indispensable  that  his  brain 
itself  should  be  healthy,  or  in  the  pro- 
per state  to  enable  it  to  fulfil  its  func- 
tions with  precision  and  to  exercise  its 
faculties  with  vigour.  It  is  necessary 
that  memory  should  faithfully  retrace 
its  anterior  sensations  and  ideas,  to  the 
end,  that  he  may  be  competent  to  judge 
or  to  foresee  the  effects  he  may  have  to 
hope  or  to  fear  from  those  actions  to 
which  he  may  be  determined  by  his 
will.  If  his  interior  or  exterior  organs 
be  defective,  whether  by  their  natural 
conformation,  or  from  those  causes  by 
which  they  are  regulated,  he  feels  but 
imperfectly,  and  in  a  manner  less  dis- 
tinct than  is  requisite ;  his  ideas  are 
either  false  or  suspicious ;  he  judges 
badly  ;  he  is  in  a  delusion,  or  in  a  state 
of  ebriety  that  prevents  his  grasping 
the  true  relation  of  things.  In  short,  if 
his  memory  be  faulty,  if  it  be  treacher- 
ous, his  reflection  is  void ;  his  imagina- 
tion leads  him  astray  ;  his  mind  de- 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


ceives  him ;  whilst  the  sensibility  of 
his  organs,  simultaneously  assailed  by 
a  crowd  of  impressions,  oppose  him  to 
prudence,  to  foresight,  and  to  the  ex- 
ercise of  his  reason.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  confirmation  of  his  organs, 
as  it  happens  with  those  of  a  phleg- 
matic temperament,  does  not  permit 
him  to  move,  except  with  feebleness 
and  in  a  sluggish  manner,  his  experi- 
ence is  slow,  and  frequently  unprofit- 
able. The  tortoise  and  the  butterfly 
are  alike  incapable  of  preventing  their 
destruction.  The  stupid  man  and  he 
who  is  intoxicated,  are  in  that  state 
which  renders  it  impossible  for  them 
to  attain  the  end  they  have  in  view. 

But  what  is  the  aim  of  man  in  the 
sphere  he  occupies  ?  It  is  to  preserve 
himself  and  to  render  his  existence 
happy.  It  becomes,  then,  of  the  ut- 
most importance  that  he  should  un- 
derstand the  true  means  which  reason 
points  out,  which  prudence  teaches  him 
to  use,  in  order  that  he  may  always 
and  with  certainty  arrive  at  the  end 
which  he  proposes  to  himself.  These 
are  his  natural  faculties,  his  mind,  his 
talents,  his  industry,  his  actions  deter- 
mined by  those  passions  of  which  his 
nature  renders  him  susceptible,  and 
which  give  more  or  less  activity  to  his 
will.  Experience  and  reason  show 
him  again  that  the  men  with  whom  he 
is  associated,  are  necessary  to  him — 
are  capable  of  contributing  to  his  hap- 
piness and  to  his  pleasures,  and  are 
competent  to  assist  him  by  those  facul- 
ties which  are  peculiar  to  them  :  expe- 
rience teaches  him  the  mode  he  must 
adopt  to  induce  them  to  concur  in  his 
designs — to  determine  them  to  will  and 
to  act  in  his  favour.  This  points  out 
to  him  the  actions  they  approve — those 
which  displease  them — the  conduct 
which  attracts  them — that  which  re- 
pels them — the  judgment  by  which 
they  are  swayed — the  advantages  that 
occur,  the  prejudicial  effects  that  result 
to  him  from  their  various  modes  of 
existence  and  manner  of  acting.  This 
experience  furnishes  him  with  the  ideas 
of  virtue  and  of  vice — of  justice  and  of 
injustice — of  goodness  and  of  wicked- 
ness— of  decency  and  of  indecency — 
of  probity  and  of  knavery.J  In  short, 
he  learns  to  form  a  judgment  of  men, 
to  estimate '.  their  actions — to  distin- 
guish the  various  sentiments  excited  in 


them,  according  to  the  diversity  of 
those  effects  which  they  make  him  ex- 
perience. 

It  is  upon  the  necessary  diversity  of 
these  effects  that  is  founded  the  dis- 
crimination between  good  and  evil — 
between  virtue  and  vice  ;  distinctions 
Avhich  do  not  rest,  as  some  thinkers 
have  believed,  on  the  conventions  made 
between  men  ;  still  less  upon  the  chi- 
merical will  of  a  supernatural  being, 
but  upon  the  invariable,  the  eternal  re- 
lations that  subsist  between  beings  of 
the  human  species  congregated  to- 
gether, and  living  in  society — relations 
which  will  have  existence  as  long  as 
man  shall  remain,  and  as  long  as  so- 
ciety shall  continue  to  exist. 

Thus  virtue  is  every  thing  that  is 
truly  and  constantly  useful  to  the  indi- 
viduals of  the  human  race  living  to- 
gether in  society ;  vice,  every  thing 
that  is  injurious  to  them.  The  greatest 
virtues  are  those  which  procure  for 
man  the  most  durable  and  solid  advan- 
tages :  the  greatest  vices,  are  those 
which  most  disturb  his  tendency  to 
happiness,  and  which  most  interrupt 
the  necessary  order  of  society.  The 
virtuous  man  is  he  whose  actions  tend 
uniformly  to  the  welfare  of  his  fellow 
creatures.  The  vicious  man  is  he 
whose  conduct  tends  to  the  misery  of 
those  with  whom  he  lives ;  from 
whence  his  own  peculiar  misery  most 
commonly  results.  Every  thing  that 
procures  for  man  a  true  and  a  perma- 
nent happiness,  is  reasonable ;  every 
thing  that  disturbs  his  individual  feli- 
city, or  that  of  the  beings  necessary  to 
his  happiness,  is  foolish  or  unreasona- 
ble. The  man  who  injures  others,  is 
wicked — the  man  who  injures  himself, 
is  an  imprudent  being,  who  neither  has 
a  knowledge  of  reason,  of  his  own  pe- 
culiar interests,  nor  of  truth. 

Man's  duties  are  the  means  pointed 
out  to  him  by  experience  and  reason, 
by  which  he  is  to  arrive  at  that  goal  he 
proposes  to  himself:  these  duties  are 
the  necessary  consequence  of  the  rela- 
tions subsisting  between  mortals  who 
equally  desire  happiness,  and  who  are 
equally  anxious  to  preserve  their  exist- 
ence. When  it  is  said,  these  duties 
compel  him,  it  signifies  nothing  more 
than  that,  without  taking  these  means, 
he  could  not  reach  the  end  proposed  to 
him  by  his  nature.  Thus,  moral  obli- 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


67 


gation  is  the  necessity  of  employing 
the  natural  means  to  render  the  beings 
with  whom  he  lives  happy,  to  the  end 
that  he  may  determine  them  in  turn, 
to  contribute  to  his  own  individual 
happiness  :  his  obligation  towards  him- 
self is  the  necessity  he  is  under  to  take 
those  means  without  which  he  would 
be  incapable  to  conserve  himself,  and 
render  his  existence  solidly  happy. 
Morals,  like  the  universe,  are  founded  j 
upon  necessity,  or  upon  the  eternal  re-  j 
lation  of  things. 

Happiness,  is  a  mode  of  existence  > 
of  which  man  naturally  wishes  the  j 
duration,  or  in  which  he  is  willing  to 
continue.  It  is  measured  by  its  dura- 
tion and  its  vivacity.  The  greatest 
happiness  is  that  which  has  the  longest 
continuance :  transient  happiness,  or 
that  which  has  only  a  short  duration, 
is  called  pleasure ;  the  more  lively  it 
is,  the  more  fugitive,  because  man's 
senses  are  only  susceptible  of  a  certain 
quantum  of  motion.  When  pleasure 
exceeds  this  given  quantity,  it  is  chang- 
ed into  anguish,  or  into  that  painful 
mode  of  existence  of  which  he  ardently 
desires  the  cessation :  this  is  the  rea- 
son why  pleasure  and  pain  frequently 
so  closely  approximate  each  other  as 
scarcely  to  be  discriminated.  Immod- 
erate pleasure  is  the  forerunner  of  re-  j 
gret.  It  is  succeeded  by  ennui  and 
weariness,  and  it  ends  in  disgust: 
transient  happiness  frequently  converts 
itself  into  durable  misfortune.  Ac- 
cording to  these  principles,  it  will  be 
seen  that  man,  who  in  each  moment 
of  his  duration  seeks  necessarily  after 
happiness,  ought,  when  he  is  reason- 
able, to  regulate  his  pleasures,  and  to 
refuse  himself  to  all  those  of  which  the 
indulgence  would  be  succeeded  by  re- 
gret or  pain  ;  whilst  he  should  endea- 
vour to  procure  for  himself  the  most 
permanent  felicity. 

Happiness  cannot  be  the  same  for 
all  the  beings  of  the  human  species  ; 
the  same  pleasures  cannot  equally  af- 
fect men  whose  confirmation  is  differ- 
ent, whose  modification  is  diverse. 
This,  no  doubt,  is  the  true  reason  why 
the  greater  number  of  moral  philoso- 
phers are  so  little  in  accord  upon  those 
objects  in  which  they  have  made  man's 
happiness  consist,  as  well  as  on  the 
means  by  which  it  may  be  obtained, 
i Nevertheless,  in  general  happiness  ap- 


pears to  be  a  state,  whether  momentary 
or  durable,  in  which  man  readily  ac- 
quiesces, because  he  finds  it  conform- 
able to  his  being.  This  state  results 
from  the  accord  which  is  found  between 
himself  and  those  circumstances  in 
which  he  has  been  placed  by  nature  : 
or,  if  it  be  preferred,  happiness  is  the 
co-ordination  of  man  with  the  causes 
that  give  him  impulse. 

The  ideas  which  man  forms  to  him- 
self of  happiness,  depend  not  only  on 
his  temperament,  on  his  individual  con- 
formation, but  also  upon  the  habits  he 
has  contracted.  Habit,  is  in  man  a 
mode  of  existence — of  thinking — of 
acting,  which  his  organs,  as  well  in- 
terior as  exterior,  contract  by  the 
frequent  reiteration  of  the  same  mo- 
tion, from  whence  results  the  faculty  of 
performing  these  actions  with  prompti^ 
tude  and  with  facility. 

If  things  be  attentively  considered, 
it  will  be  found  that  almost  the  whole 
conduct  of  man,  the  entire  system  of 
his  actions,  his  occupations,  his  con- 
nexions, his  studies,  his  amusements, 
his  manners,  his  customs,  his  very  gar- 
ments, even  his  aliments,  are  the  ef- 
fect of  habit.  He  owes  equally  to  habit 
the  facility  with  which  he  exercises 
his  mental  faculties  of  thought,  of  judg- 
ment, of  wit,  of  reason,  of  taste,  &c. 
It  is  to  habit  he  owes  the  greater  part 
of  his  inclinations,  of  his  desires,  of  his 
opinions,  of  his  prejudices,  of  the  ideas, 
true  or  false,  he  forms  to  himself  of 
his  welfare.  In  short,  it  is  to  habit, 
consecrated  by  time,  that  he  owes  those 
errours  into  which  every  thing  strives 
to  precipitate  him,  and  to  prevent  him 
from  emancipating  himself.  It  is  habit 
that  attaches  him  either  to  virtue  or  to 
vice.*  ^ 

Man  is  so  much  modified  by  habit, 
that  it  is  frequently  confounded  with 
his  nature  :  from  hence  results,  as  will 
presently  be  seen,  those  opinions,  or 
those  ideas  which  he  has  called  innate, 

*  Experience  proves  that  the  first  crime  is 
always  accompanied  by  more  pangs  of  re- 
morse than  the  second ;  this  again,  by  more 
than  the  third,  and  so  on  to  those  that  follow. 
A  first  action  is  the  commencement  of  a  habit ; 
those  which  succeed  confirm  it :  by  force  of 
combating  the  obstacles  that  prevent  the 
commission  of  criminal  actions,  man  arrives 
at  the  power  of  vanquishing  them  with  ease 
and  with  facility.  Thus  He  frequently  be- 
comes wicked  from  habit. 


OF  THE  INTELLECT. 


because  he  has  been  unwilling  to  re 
cur  back  to  the  source  from  whence 
they  sprung,  which  has,  as  it  were 
identified  itself  with  his  brain.  How 
ever  this  may  be.  he  adheres  with 
great  strength  of  attachment  to  all  those 
things  to  which  he  is  habituated ;  his 
mind  experiences  a  sort  of  violence,  or 
incommodious  revulsion,  when  it  i< 
endeavoured  to  make  him  change  the 
course  of  his  ideas :  a  fatal  predilection 
frequently  conducts  him  back  to  the 
old  track  in  despite  of  reason. 

It  is  by  a  pure  mechanism  that  may 
be  explained  the  phenomena  of  habit, 
as  well  physical  as  moral ;  the  soul, 
notwithstanding  its  pretended  spiritu- 
ality, is  modified  exactly  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  body.  Habit,  in  man, 
causes  the  organs  of  voice  to  learn  the 
mode  of  expressing  quickly  the  ideas 
consigned  to  his  brain,  by  means  of 
certain  motion,  which,  during  his  in- 
fancy, the  tongue  acquires  the  power 
of  executing  with  facility  :  his  tongue, 
once  habituated  to  move  itself  in  a  cer- 
tain manner,  finds  much  trouble  to 
move  itself  after  another  mode ;  the 
throat  yields  with  difficulty  to  those 
inflections  which  are  exacted  by  a 
language  different  from  that  to  which 
he  has  been  accustomed.  It  is  the  same 
with  his  ideas ;  his  brain,  his  interior 
organ,  his  soul,  inured  to  a  given  man- 
ner of  modification,  accustomed  to  at- 
tach certain  ideas  to  certain  objects, 
long  used  to  form  to  itself  a  system 
connected  with  certain  opinions,  wheth- 
er true  or  false,  experiences  a  painful 
sensation  whenever  he  undertakes  to 
give  it  a  new  impulse,  or  alter  the  di- 
rection of  its  habitual  motion.  It  is 
nearly  as  difficult  to  make  him  change 
his  opinions  as  his  language.* 

Here  then,  without  doubt,  is  the 
cause  of  that  almost  invincible  attach- 
ment which  man  displays  to  those 
customs,  those  prejudices,  those  insti- 
tutions of  which  it  is  in  vain  that  rea- 
son, experience,  good  sense,  prove  to 
him  the  inutility,  or  even  the  danger. 

*  Hobbes  says  that,  "It  is  the  nature  of  all 
corporeal  beings,  who  have  been  frequently 
moved  in  the  same  manner,  to  continually  re- 
ceive a  greater  aptitude,  or  to  produce  the 
same  motions  with  more  facility."  It  is  this 
which  constitutes  habit  as  well  in  morals  as 
in  physics.  V.  llabbes's  Essay  on  Human 
Nature. 


Habit  opposes  itself  to  the  clearest  de- 
monstrations ;  these  can  avail  nothing 
against  those  passions  and  those  vices 
which  time  has  rooted  in  him — against 
the  most  ridiculous  systems — against 
the  strangest  customs — especially  when 
he  has  learned  to  attach  to  them  the 
ideas  of  utility — of  common  interest  — 
of  the  welfare  of  society.  Such  is  the 
source  of  that  obstinacy  which  man 
evinces  for  his  religion — for  ancient 
usages — for  unreasonable  customs — for 
laws,  so  little  accordant  with  justice — 
for  abuses,  which  so  frequently  make 
him  suffer — for  prejudices  of  which  he 
sometimes  acknowledges  the  absurdity, 
although  unwilling  to  divest  himself 
of  them.  Here  is  the  reason  why  na- 
tions contemplate  the  most  useful 
novelties  as  mischievous  innovations, 
and  believe  they  would  be  lost  if  they 
were  to  remedy  those  evils  which  they 
have  learned  to  consider  as  necessary 
to  their  repose,  and  which  they  have 
been  taught  to  consider  dangerous  to 
be  cured.* 

Education,  is  the  only  art  of  making' 
man  contract  in  early  life,  that  is  to 
say,  when  his  organs  are  extremely 
flexible,  the  habits,  the  opinions,  and 
the  modes  of  existence  adopted  by  the 
society  in  which  he  is  placed.  The1 
irst  moments  of  his  infancy  are  em- 
}loye3  in  collecting  experience ;  those 
who  are  charged  with  the  care  of  bring- 
ng  him  up,  teach  him  how  to  apply  it: 
it  is  they  who  develop  reason  in  him : 
:he  first  impulse  they  give  him  coni- 
monly  decides  of  his  condition,  his 
passions,  the  ideas  he  forms  to  himself 
of  happiness,  and  the  means  he  shall 
employ  to  procure  it — of  his  virtues 
and  his  vices.  Under  the  eyes  of  his 
masters,  the  infant  acquires  ideas, 
and  learns  to  associate  them — to  think 
n  a  certain  manner — to  judge  well  or 
11.  They  point  out  to  him  various 
objects,  f  which  they  accustom  him 
either  to  love  or  to  hate,  to  desire  or  to 
avoid,  to  esteem  or  to  despise.  It  is 
bus  opinions  are  transmitted  from 
athers,  from  mothers,  from  nurses, 
and  from  masters,  to  man  in  his  infan- 
ile  state.  It  is  thus  that  his  mind  by 


*  Assiduitate  quotidian  a  et  consuetudine 
iculorum  assuescunt  animi,  neque  admiran- 
ur,  neque  requirunt  rationes  earum  rerum 
quas  vident.  Cicero  de  Natur :  Deorum  Lib. 
i.  Cap.  2. 


OF  GOVERNMENT. 


degrees  saturates  itself  with  truth,  or 
fills  itself  with  errour,  and  as  either  of 
them  regulates  his  conduct,  it  renders 
him  either  happy  or  miserable,  virtuous 
or  vicious,  estimable  or  hateful.  It  is 
thus  he  becomes  either  contented  or 
discontented  with  his  destiny,  accord- 
ing to  the  objects  towards  which  they 
have  directed  his  passions,  and  bent  the 
energies  of  his  mind ;  that  is  to  say, 
in  which  they  have  shown  him  his  in- 
terest, or  taught  him  to  place  his  felici- 
ty :  in  consequence  he  loves  and  seeks 
after  that  which  they  have  instructed 
him  to  revere,  which  they  have  made 
the  object  of  his  research  :  he  has  those 
tastes,  those  inclinations,  those  phan- 
tasms, which,  during  the  whole  course 
of  his  life,  he  is  forward  to  indulge, 
which  he  is  eager  to  satisfy,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  activity  they  have  excited 
in  him,  and  the  capacity  with  which 
he  has  been  provided  by  nature. 
P~  Politics  ought  to  be  the  art  of  regu- 
lating the  passions  of  man,  and  of  di- 
recting them  to  the  welfare  of  society  ; 
but  too  frequently  it  is  nothing  more 
than  the  detestable  art  of  arming  the 
passions  of  the  various  members  of 
society  against  each  other,  to  accom- 
plish their  mutual  destruction,  and  fill 
with  rancorous  animosities  that  associ- 
ation, from  which,  if  properly  manag- 
ed, man  ought  to  derive  his  felicity. 
Society  is  commonly  so  vicious  be- 
cause it  is  not  founded  upon  nature, 
upon  experience,  upon  general  utility, 
but  on  the  contrary,  upon  the  passions, 
the  caprices,  the  particular  interests  of 
those  by  whom  it  is  governed. 

Politics,  to  be  useful,  should  found 
its  principles  upon  nature;  that  is  to 
say,  should  conform  itself  to  the  es- 
sence of  man,  and  to  the  great  end  of  so- 
ciety :  and  society  being  a  whole,  form- 
ed by  the  union  of  a  great  number  of 
families  or  individuals,  assembled  from 
a  reciprocity  of  interest  in  order  that 
they  may  satisfy  with  greater  facility 
their  reciprocal  wants,  and  procure  the 
advantages  they  desire ;  that  they  may 
obtain  mutual  succours ;  above  all, 
that  they  may  gain  the  faculty  of  en- 
joying in  security  those  benefits  with 
which  nature  and  industry  may  furnish 
them ;  it  follows,  of  course,  that  poli- 
tics, destined  to  maintain  society, 
ought  to  enter  into  its  views,  facilitate 
the  means  of  giving  them  efficiency, 


and  remove  all  those  obstacles  that 
have  a  tendency  to  counteract  the  in- 
tention with  which  man  entered  into 
association. 

Man  in  approximating  to  his  fellow^ 
man  to  live  with  him  in  society,  has 
made,  either  formally  or  tacitly,  a 
covenant,  by  which  he  engages  to 
render  mutual  services,  and  to  do  noth- 
ing that  can  be  prejudicial  to  his  neigh- 
bour. But  as  the  nature  of  each  indi- 
vidual impels  him  constantly  to  seek 
after  his  own  welfare,  which  he  has 
mistaken  to  consist  in  the  gratification 
of  his  passions,  in  the  indulgence  of 
his  transitory  caprices,  without  any  re- 
gard to  the  convenience  of  his  fellows; 
there  needed  a  power  to  conduct  him 
back  to  his  duty,  to  oblige  him  to  con- 
form himself  to  his  obligations,  and  to 
recall  him  to  engagements  which  the 
hurry  of  his  passions  frequently  make 
him  forget.  This  power  is  the  law; 
it  is  the  collection  of  the  will  of  society, 
reunited  to  fix  the  conduct  of  its  mem- 
bers, and  to  direct  their  action  in  such 
a  mode  that  it  may  concur  to  the  great 
end  of  his  association. 

But  as  society,  more  especially  when 
very  numerous,  cannot  assemble  itself 
unless  with  great  difficulty,  and  without 
tumult  make  known  its  intentions,  it  is 
obliged  to  choose  citizens  in  whom  it 
places  confidence ;  whom  it  makes  the 
interpreter  of  its  will ;  whom  it  consti- 
tutes the  depositaries  of  the  power 
requisite  to  carry  it  into  execution. 
Such  is  the  origin  of  all  government, 
which  to  he  legitimate  can  only  be 
founded  on  the  free  consent  of  society — 
without  which  it  is  violence,  usurpation, 
robbery.  Those  who  are  charged  with 
the  care  of  governing,  call  themselves 
sovereigns,  chiefs,  legislators,  and, 
according  to  the  form  which  society 
has  been  willing  to  give  to  its  govern- 
ment, these  sovereigns  are  styled  mon- 
archs,  magistrates,  representatives, 
&c.  Government  only  borrows  its 
power  from  society :  being  established 
for  no  other  purpose  than  its  welfare, 
it  is  evident  society  can  revoke  this 
power  whenever  its  interest  shall  exact 
it — change  the  form  of  its  government — 
extend  or  limit  the  power  which  it  has 
confided  to  its  chiefs,  over  whom,  by 
the  immutable  laws  of  nature,  it  al- 
ways conserves  a  supreme  authority; 
because  these  laws  enjoin,  that  the  part 


70 


OP  GOVERNMENT. 


shall  always  remain  subordinate  to  the 
whole. 

Thus  sovereigns  are  the  ministers  of 
society — its  interpreters — the  deposita- 
ries of  a  greater  or  of  a  less  portion  of 
its  power,  but  they  are  not  its  absolute 
masters,  neither  are  they  the  proprietors 
of  nations.  By  a  covenant,  either  ex- 
pressed or  implied,  they  engage  them- 
selves to  watch  over  the  maintenance, 
and  to  occupy  themselves  with  the 
welfare,  of  society  ;  it  is  only  upon 
these  conditions  that  society  consents 
to  obey  them.  The  price  of  obedience 
is  protection.*  No  society  upon  earth 
was  ever  willing  or  competent  to  confer 
irrevocably  upon  its  chiefs  the  right  of 
doing  it  injury.  Such  a  compact  would 
be  annulled  by  nature ;  because  she 
wills  that  each  society,  the  same  as 
each  individual  of  the  human  species, 
shall  tend  to  its  own  conservation ;  it 
has  not,  therefore,  the  capacity  to  con- 
sent to  its  permanent  misery. 

Laws,  in  order  that  they  maybe  just, 
ought  invariably  to  have  for  their  end 
the  general  interest  of  society ;  that  is 
to  say,  to  assure  to  the  greater  number 
of  citizens  those  advantages  for  which 
man  originally  associated.  These  ad- 
vantages are,  liberty,  property,  secu- 
rity. 

Liberty,  to  man,  is  the  faculty  of 
doing,  for  his  own  peculiar  happiness, 
every  thing  which  does  not  injure  or 
diminish  the  happiness  of  his  associates : 
in  associating,  each  individual  renounc- 
ed the  exercise  of  that  portion  of  his 
natural  liberty,  which  would  be  able  to 
prejudice  or  injure  the  liberty  of  his 
fellows.  The  exercise  of  that  liberty 
which  is  injurious  to  society  is  called 
licentiousness.  Property  is  the  faculty 
of  enjoying  those  advantages  which 
spring  from  labour— those  benefits  which 
industry  or  talent  has  procured  to  each 
member  of  society.  Security  is  the 
certitude  that  each  individual  ought  to 
have,  of  enjoying  in  his  person  and  his 
property,  the  protection  of  the  laws,  as 
long  as  he  shall  faithfully  perform  his 
engagements  with  society.  Justice 
assures  to  all  the  members  of  society, 

*  There  ought  to  be  a  reciprocity  of  interest 
between  the  governed  and  the  governor :  when- 
ever this  reciprocity  is  wanting,  society  is  in 
that  state  of  confusion,  spoken  of  in  the  fifth 
chapter,— it  is  verging  on  destruction. 


the  possession  of  those  advantages  or 
rights  which  belong  to  them.  From 
this  it  will  appear,  that,  without  justice, 
society  is  not  in  a  condition  to  procure 
the  happiness  of  any  man.  Justice  is 
also  called  equity,  because,  by  the 
assistance  of  the  laws,  made  to  com- 
mand the  whole,  she  reduces  all  its 
members  to  a  state  of  equality  ;  that  is 
to  say,  she  prevents  them  from  prevail- 
ing one  over  the  other  by  the  inequality 
which  nature  or  industry  may  have 
made  between  their  respective  powers. 
Rights  are  every  thing  which  society, 
by  equitable  laws,  permits  each  indi- 
vidual to  do  for  his  own  peculiar  felicity. 
These  rights  are  evidently  limited  by 
the  invariable  end  of  all  association; 
society  has,  on  its  part,  rights  over  all 
its  members,  by  virtue  of  the  advantages 
which  it  procures  for  them ;  all  its  mem- 
bers, in  turn,  have  a  right  to  claim  from 
society,  or  secure  from  its  ministers, 
those  advantages  for  the  procuring  of 
which  they  congregated,  and  renounced 
a  portion  of  their  natural  liberty.  A 
society  of  which  the  chiefs,  aided  by 
the  laws,  do  not  procure  any  good  for 
its  members,  evidently  loses  its  right 
over  them :  those  chiefs  who  injure 
society,  lose  the  right  of  commanding. 
It  is  not  our  country  without  it  secures 
the  welfare  of  its  inhabitants ;  a  society 
without  equity  contains  only  enemies; 
a  society  oppressed  is  composed  only 
of  tyrants  and  slaves ;  slaves  are  in- 
capable of  being  citizens ;  it  is  liberty — 
property  —  security,  that  render  our 
country  dear  to  us ;  and  it  is  the  true 
love  of  his  country  that  forms  the 
citizen.j 

For  want  of  having  a  proper  know- 
ledge of  these  truths,  or  for  want  of 
applying  them  when  known,  some  na- 
tions have  become  unhappy — have  con- 
tained nothing  but  a  vile  heap  of  slaves, 
separated  from  each  other,  and  detached 
from  society,  which  neither  procures  for 
them  any  good,  nor  secures  to  them  any 
one  advantage.  In  consequence  of  the 
imprudence  of  some  nations,  or  of  the 
craft,  the  cunning,  the  violence  of  those 
to  whom  they  have  confided  the  power 
of  making  laws,  and  of  carrying  them 
into  execution,  their  sovereigns  have 
rendered  themselves  absolute  masters 


t  An  ancient  poet  has  justly  said,  Sermrum 
nulla  est  unquam  civitas. 


OP  GOVERNMENT. 


71 


of  society.  These,  mistaking  the  true 
source  of  their  power,  pretended  to  hold 
it  from  heaven;  to  be  accountable  for 
their  actions  to  God  alone ;  to  owe 
nothing  to  society,  in  a  word,  to  be 
Gods  upon  earth,  and  to  possess  the 
right  of  governing  arbitrarily,  as  the 
God  or  Gods  above.  From  thence 
politics  became  corrupted,  they  were 
only  a  mockery.  Such  nations,  dis- 
graced and  grown  contemptible,  did 
not  dare  resist  the  will  of  their  chiefs — 
their  laws  were  nothing  more  than  the 
expression  of  the  caprice  of  these  chiefs ; 
public  welfare  was  sacrificed  to  their 
peculiar  interests — the  force  of  society 
was  turned  against  itself— its  members 
withdrew  to  attach  themselves  to  its 
oppressors,  to  its  tyrants ;  these,  to 
seduce  them,  permitted  them  to  injure 
it  with  impunity,  to  profit  by  its  mis- 
fortunes. Thus  liberty,  justice,  security, 
virtue,  were  banished  from  many  na- 
tions— politics  was  no  longer  any  thing 
more  than  the  art  of  availing  itself  of 
the  forces  of  a  people,  of  the  treasure 
of  society,  of  dividing  it  on  the  subject 
of  its  interest,  in  order  to  subjugate  it 
by  itself:  at  length  a  stupid  and  me- 
chanical habit  made  them  love  their 
chains. 

Man,  when  he  has  nothing  to  fear,"' 
presently  becomes  wicked ;  he  who] 
believes  he  has  not  occasion  for  his 
fellow,  persuades  himself  he  may  fol- 
low the  inclinations  of  his  heart,  with- 
out caution  or  discretion.  Thus,  fear: 
is  the  only  obstacle  society  can  effecftH 
ally  oppose  to  the  passions  of  its  chiefs: 
without  it  they  will  quickly  become 
corrupt,  and  will  not  scruple  to  avail 
themselves  of  the  means  society  has 
placed  in  their  hands  to  make  them 
accomplices  in  their  iniquity.  To  pre- 
vent these  abuses  it  is  requisite  society 
should  set  bounds  to  its  confidence  ; 
should  limit  the  power  which  it  dele- 
gates to  its  chiefs ;  should  reserve  to 
itself  a  sufficient  portion  of  authority 
to  prevent  them  from  injuring  it ;  it 
must  establish  prudent  checks ;  it  must 
cautiously  divide  the  powers  it  confers, 
because  united  it  will  be  infallibly 
oppressed.  The  slightest  reflection  will 
make  men  feel,  that  the  burden  of 
governing  is  too  ponderous  to  be  borne 
by  an  individual — that  the  scope  and 
the  multiplicity  of  his  duties  must 
always  render  him  negligent — that  the 


extent  of  his  power  has  ever  a  tendency 
to  render  him  mischievous.  In  short, 
the  experience  of  all  ages  will  convince 
nations  that  man  is  continually  tempted 
to  the  abuse  of  power:  that  therefore 
the  sovereign  ought  to  be  subject  to  the 
law,  not  the  law  to  the  sovereign. 

Government  has  necessarily  an  equal 
influence  over  the  philosophy  as  over 
the  morals  of  nations.  In  the  same 
manner  that  its  care  produces  labour, 
activity,  abundance,  salubrity,  justice, 
and  its  negligence  induces  idleness, 
sloth,  discouragement,  penury,  conta- 
gion, injustice,  vices  and  crimes.  It 
depends  upon  government  either  to 
foster  industry,  mature  genius,  give  a 
spring  to  talents,  or  to  stifle  them. 
Indeed,  government,  the  distributer  of 
dignities,  of  riches,  of  rewards,  of  pun- 
ishments— the  master  of  those  objects 
in  which  man  from  his  infancy  has 
learned  to  place  his  felicity — acquires 
a  necessary  influence  over  his  conduct ; 
it  kindles  his  passions ;  gives  them 
direction ;  makes  him  instrumental  to 
whatever  purpose  it  pleases:  it  modifies 
him;  determines  his  manners;  which 
in  a  whole  people,  as  in  the  individual, 
is  nothing  more  than  the  conduct,  or 
the  general  system  of  wills  and  of 
actions  that  necessarily  result  from  his 
education,  his  government,  his  laAvs, 
his  religious  opinions,  his  institutions, 
whether  rational  or  irrational.  In  short, 
manners  are  the  habits  of  a  people : 
these  are  good  whenever  society  draws 
from  them  true  and  solid  happiness  ; 
they  are  detestable  in  the  eye  of  reason, 
when  the  happiness  of  society  does  not 
spring  from  them,  and  when  they  have 
nothing  more  in  their  favour  than  the 
suffrage  of  time,  or  the  countenance  of 
prejudice,  which  rarely  consults  expe- 
rience and  good  sense.  If  experience 
be  consulted,  it  will  be  found  there  is 
no  action,  however  abominable,  that 
has  not  received  the  applause  of  some 
people.  Parricide  —  the  sacrifice  of 
children-  robbery — usurpation — cruel- 
ty— intolerance — prostitution,  have  all 
in  their  turn  been  licensed  actions, 
and  have  been  deemed  laudable  and 
meritorious  deeds  with  some  nations 
of  the  earth.  Above  all,  Religion  has 
consecrated  the  most  unreasonable,  the 
most  revolting  customs. 

Man's  passions  depending  on  the 
motion  of  attraction  and  of  repulsioa 


72 


OF  GOVERNMENT. 


of  which  he  is  rendered  susceptible  by 
nature,  who  enables  him,  by  his  pecu- 
liar essence,  to  be  attracted  by  those 
objects  which  appear  useful  to  him,  to 
be  repelled  by  those  which  he  considers 
prejudicial;  it  follows  that  government, 
by  holding  the  magnet,  has  the  power 
either  of  restraining  them,  or  of  giving 
them  a  favourable  or  an  unfavourable 
direction.  All  his  passions  are  con- 
stantly limited  by  either  loving  or 
hating — seeking  or  avoiding — desiring 
or  fearing.  These  passions,  so  neces- 
sary to  the  conservation  of  man,  are 
a  consequence  of  his  organization,  and 
display  themselves  with  more  or  less 
energy,  according  to  his  temperament: 
education  and  habit  develop  them,  and 
government  conducts  them  towards 
those  objects  which  it  believes  itself 
interested  in  making  desirable  to  its 
subjects.  The  various  names  which 
have  been  given  to  these  passions  are 
relative  to  the  different  objects  by  which 
they  are  excited,  such  as  pleasure — 
grandeur — riches,  which  produce  volup- 
tuousness— ambition — vanity— avarice. 
If  the  source  of  those  passions  which 
predominate  in  nations  be  attentively 
examined,  it  will  be  commonly  found 
in  their  governments.  It  is  the  impulse 
received  from  their  chiefs  that  renders 
them  sometimes  warlike — sometimes 
superstitious — sometimes  aspiring  after 
glory— sometimes  greedy  after  wealth— 
sometimes  rational — sometimes  unrea- 
sonable. If  sovereigns,  in  order  to 
enlighten  and  to  render  happy  their 
dominions,  were  to  employ  onlv  the 
tenth  part  of  the  vast  expenditures 
which  they  lavish,  and  only  a  tithe  of 
the  pains  which  they  employ  to  stupify 
them — to  deceive  them — to  afflict  them, 
their  subjects  would  presently  be  as 
wise  and  as  happy,  as  they  are  now 
remarkable  for  being  blind,  ignorant, 
and  miserable. 

Let  the  vain  project  of  destroying 
passions  from  the  heart  of  man  be 
abandoned ;  let  an  effort  be  made  to 
direct  them  towards  objects  that  may 
be  useful  to  himself  and  to  his  associates. 
Let  education,  let  government,  let  the 
laws,  habituate  him  to  restrain  his  pas- 
sions within  those  just  bounds  which 
experience  and  reason  prescribe.  Let 
the  ambitious  have  honours,  titles,  dis- 
tinctions, power,  when  they  shall  have 
usefully  served  their  country ;  let  riches 


be  given  to  those  who  covet  them,  when 
they  shall  have  rendered  themselves 
necessary  to  their  fellow  citizens ;  let 
eulogies  encourage  those  who  shall  be 
actuated  by  the  love  of  glory.  In  short, 
let  the  passions  of  man  have  a  free 
course,  whenever  there  shall  result  from 
their  exercise  real  and  durable  advan- 
tages to  society.  Let  education  kindle 
only  those  which  are  truly  beneficial  to 
the  human  species ;  let  it  favour  those 
alone  which  are  really  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  society.  The  passions 
of  man  are  dangerous,  only  because 
every  thing  conspires  to  give  them  an 
evil  direction. 

Nature  does  not  make  man  either 
good  or  wicked  ;*  she  combines  ma- 
chines more  or  less  active,  mobile,  and 
energetic ;  she  furnishes  him  with  or- 
gans, with  temperament,  of  which  his 
passions,  more  or  less  impetuous,  are 
the  necessary  consequence ;  these  pas- 
sions have  always  his  happiness  for 
thefr;  object;  therefore  they  are  legiti- 
mate'and  natural,  and  they  can  only 
be  called  bad  or  good,  relatively  to  the 
influence  they  have  on  the  beings  of 
his  species.  Nature  gives  man  legs 
proper  to  sustain  his  weight,  necessary 
to  transport  him  from  one  place  to 
another ;  the  care  of  those  who  rear 
them,  strengthens  them ;  habituates  him 
to  avail  himself  of  them ;  accustoms 
him  to  make  either  a  good  or  a  bad  use 
of  them.  The  arm  which  he  has  re- 
ceived from  nature  is  neither  good  nor 
bad ;  it  is  necessary  to  a  great  number 
of  the  actions  of  life ;  nevertheless  the 
use  of  this  arm  becomes  criminal  if  he 
has  contracted  the  habit  of  using  it  to 
rob  or  to  assassinate,  with  a  view  to 
obtain  that  money  which  he  has  been 
taught  from  his  infancy  to  desire ;  which 
the  society  in  whicn  he  lives  renders 
necessary  to  him,  but  which  his  industry 
will  enable  him  to  obtain  without  doing 
injury  to  hi 5  fellow  man. 

The  heart  of  man  is  a  soil  which 
nature  has  made  equally  suitable  to 
the  pioduction  of  brambles  or  of  useful 
grain — of  deleterious  poison  or  of  re- 
fre  ;hing  fruit,  by  virtue  of  the  seeds 
which  may  he  sown  in  it — by  the  cul- 
tivation that  may  be  bestowed  upon  it. 
In  his  infancy  those  objects  are  pointed 


*  Seneca  has  said  with  great  reason, — Erras 
si  existimes  vitia  nobiscum  nasci ;  supervene- 
runt,  in^esta  sum.  V.  Senec.  Epist.  91, 95, 124. 


OF  GOVERNMENT. 


73 


out  to  him  which  he  is  to  estimate  or  to 
despise — to  seek  after  or  to  avoid — to 
love  or  to  hate.  It  is  his  parents  and 
his  instmcters  who  render  him  either 
virtuous  or  wicked — wise  or  unreason- 
able— studious  or  dissipated — steady  or 
trifling — solid  or  vain.  Their  example 
and  their  discourse  modify  him  through 
his  whole  life,  teaching  him  what  are 
the  things  he  ought  either  to  desire  or 
to  avoid:  he  desires  them  in  conse- 
quence ;  and  he  imposes  on  himself 
the  task  of  obtaining  them  according 
to  the  energy  of  his  temperament,  which 
ever  decides  the  force  of  his  passions. 
It  is  thus  that  education,  by  inspiring 
him  with  opinions  and  ideas  either  true 
or  false,  gives  him  those  primitive  im- 
pulsions after  which  he  acts  in  a  man- 
ner either  advantageous  or  prejudicial, 
both  to  himself  and  to  others.  Man, 
at  his  birth,  brings  with  him  into  the 
world  nothing  but  the  necessity  of  con- 
serving himself  and  of  rendering  his 
existence  happy :  instruction,  example, 
the  customs  of  the  world,  present  him 
with  the  means,  either  real  or  imagi- 
nary, of  achieving  it:  habit  procures 
for  him  the  facility  of  employing  these 
means ;  and  he  attaches  himself  strongly 
to  those  he  judges  best  calculated  to 
secure  to  him  the  possession  of  those 
objects  which  he  has  learned  to  desire 
as  the  preferable  good  attached  to  his 
existence.  Whenever  his  education^ 
whenever  the  examples  which  have 
been  afforded  him,  whenever  the  means 
with  which  he  has  been  provided,  are 
approved  by  reason,  are  the  result  of 
experience,  every  thing  concurs  to  ren- 
der him  virtuous:  habit  strengthens 
these  dispositions  in  him;  and  he  be- 
comes, in  consequence,  a  useful  meny 
ber  of  society,  to  the  interests  of  which 
every  thing  ought  to  prove  to  him  that 
his  own  permanent  well-being  is  neces- 
sarily allied.  If,  on  the  contrary,  his 
education — his  institutions — the  exam- 
ples which  are  set  before  him — the 
opinions  which  are  suggested  to  him 
in  his  infancy,  are  of  a  nature  to  exhibit 
to  his  mind  virtue  as  useless  and  repug- 
nant, and  vice  as  useful  and  congenial 
to  his  own  individual  happiness,  he  will 
become  vicious ;  he  will  believe  him- 
self interested  in  injuring  society;  he 
will  be  carried  along  by  the  general 
current :  he  will  renounce  virtue,  which 
to  him  will  no  longer  be  any  thing  more 
No.  III.— 10 


than  a  vain  idol,  without  attractions  to 
induce  him  to  follow  it ;  without  charms 
to  tempt  his  adoration,  because  it  will 
appear  to  exact  that  he  should  immolate 
at  its  shrine  all  those  objects  which  he 
has  been  constantly  taught  to  consider 
the  most  dear  to  himself  and  as  benefits 
the  most  desirable. 

In  order  that  man  may  become  vir- 
tuous, it  is  absolutely  requisite  that  he 
should  have  an  interest  or  should  find 
advantages  in  practising  virtue.  For 
this  end,  it  is  necessary  that  education 
should  implant  in  him  reasonable  ideas ; 
that  public  opinion  should  lean  towards 
virtue  as  the  most  desirable  good ;  that 
example  should  point  it  out  as  the  object 
most  worthy  esteem ;  that  government 
should  faithfully  reward  it ;  that  honour 
should  always  accompany  its  practice ; 
that  vice  and  crime  should  invariably 
be  despised  and  punished.  Is  virtue  in 
this  situation  amongst  men  ?  Does  the 
education  of  man  infuse  into  him  just 
ideas  of  happiness;  true  notions  of 
virtue ;  dispositions  really  favourable 
to  the  beings  with  whom  he  is  to  live  ? 
The  examples  spread  before  him,  are 
they  suitable  to  innocence  of  manners  1 
are  they  calculated  to  make  him  respect 
decency — to  cause  him  to  love  probity — 
to  practise  honesty — to  value  good  faith— 
to  esteem  equity — to  revere  conjugal 
fidelity — to  observe  exactitude  in  ful- 
filling his  duties  ?  Religion,  which 
alone  pretends  to  regulate  his  manners, 
does  it  render  him  sociable — does  it 
make  him  pacific — does  it  teach  him 
to  be  humane  ?  The  arbiters  of  society, 
are  they  faithful  in  rewarding  those 
who  have  best  served  their  country, 
in  punishing  those  who  have  plundered, 
divided,  and  ruined  it?  Justice,  does 
she  hold  her  scales  with  an  even  hand 
between  all  the  citizens  of  the  state? 
The  laws,  do  they  never  support  the 
strong  against  the  weak  ;  favour  the 
rich  against  the  poor ;  uphold  the  happy 
against  the  miserable  ?  In  short,  is  it 
an  uncommon  spectacle  to  behold  crime 
frequently  justified,  or  crowned  with 
success,  insolently  triumphing  over  that 
merit  which  it  disdains,  over  that  virtue 
which  it  outrages  ?  Well,  then,  in 
societies  thus  constituted,  virtue  can 
only  be  heard  by  a  very  small  number 
of  peaceable  citizens,  who  know  how 
to  estimate  its  value,  and  who  enjoy  it 
in  secret.  For  the  others,  it  is  only  a 


74 


OF  GOVERNMENT. 


disgusting  object,  as  they  see  in  it 
nothing  but  the  supposed  enemy  to 
their  happiness,  or  the  censor  of  their 
individual  conduct. 

If  man,  according  to  his  nature,  is 
necessitated  to  desire  his  welfare,  he 
is  equally  obliged  to  cherish  the  means 
by  which  he  believes  it  is  to  be  acquired : 
it  would  be  useless,  and  perhaps  unjust, 
to  demand  that  a  man  should  be  virtu- 
ous, if  he  could  not  be  so  without  ren- 
dering himself  miserable.  Whenever 
he  thinks  vice  renders  him  happy,  he 
must  necessarily  love  vice ;  whenever 
he  sees  inutility  or  crime  rewarded  and 
honoured,  what  interest  will  he  find  in 
occupying  himself  with  the  happiness 
of  his  fellow  creatures,  or  in  restraining 
the  fury  of  his  passions  1  In  fine,  when- 
ever his  mind  is  saturated  with  false 
ideas  and  dangerous  opinions,  it  follows 
of  course  that  his  whole  conduct  will 
become  nothing  more  than  a  long  chain 
of  errours,  a  series  of  depraved  actions. 

We  are  informed,  that  the  savages, 
in  order  to  flatten  the  heads  of  their 
children,  squeeze  them  between  two 
boards,  by  that  means  preventing  them 
from  taking  the  shape  designed  for 
them  by  nature.  It  is  pretty  nearly  the 
same  thing  with  the  institutions  of 
man  ;  they  commonly  conspire  to  coun- 
teract nature — to  constrain — to  divert 
— to  extinguish  the  impulse  nature  has 
given  him,  to  substitute  others  which 
are  the  source  of  all  his  misfortunes. 
In  almost  all  the  countries  of  the  earth 
man  is  bereft  of  truth,  is  fed  with  false- 
hoods, is  amused  with  marvellous  chi- 
meras :  he  is  treated  like  those  children 
whose  members  are,  by  the  imprudent 
care  of  their  nurses,  swathed  with  little 
fillets,  bound  up  with  rollers,  which 
deprive  them  of  the  free  use  of  their 
limbs,  obstruct  their  growth,  prevent 
their  activity,  and  oppose  themselves 
to  their  health. 

Most  of  the  religious  opinions  of  man 
have  for  their  object  only  to  display  to 
him  his  supreme  felicity  in  those  illu- 
sions for  which  they  kindle  his  passions : 
but  as  the  phantoms  which  are  present- 
ed to  his  imagination  are  incapable  of 
being  considered  in  the  same  light  by  all 
who  contemplate  them,  he  is  perpetually 
in  dispute  concerning  these  objects ;  he 
hates  and  persecutes  his  neighbour — 
his  neighbour  in  turn  persecutes  him — 
he  believes  in  doing  this  he  is  doing 


well ;  that  in  committing  the  greatest 
crimes  to  sustain  his  opinions  he  is  act- 
ing right.  It  is  thus  religion  infatuates 
man  from  his  infancy,  fills  him  with 
vanity  and  fanaticism :  if  he  has  a 
heated  imagination  it  drives  him  on  to 
fury  ;  if  he  has  activity,  it  makes  him 
a  madman,  who  is  frequently  as  cruel 
to  himself,  as  he  is  dangerous  and  in- 
commodious to  others:  if,  on  the  con- 
trary, he  be  phlegmatic  or  of  a  slothful 
habit,  he  becomes  melancholy  and  is 
useless  to  society. 

Public  opinion  every  instant  offers  to 
man's  contemplation  false  ideas  of  ho- 
nour and  wrong  notions  of  glory :  it 
attaches  his  esteem  not  only  to  frivo- 
lous advantages,  but  also  to  prejudicial 
and  injurious  actions,  which  example 
authorizes — which  prejudice  conse- 
crates— which  habit  precludes  him  from 
viewing  with  disgust,  from  eying  with 
the  horrour  they  merit.  Indeed,  habit 
familiarizes  his  mind  with  the  most 
absurd  ideas — with  the  most  unreason- 
able customs — with  the  most  blame- 
able  actions — with  prejudices  the  most 
contrary  to  his  own  interests,  the  most 
detrimental  to  the  society  in  which  he 
lives.  He  finds  nothing  strange,  noth- 
ing singular,  nothing  despicable,  noth- 
ing ridiculous,  except  those  opinions 
and  those  objects  to  which  he  is  him- 
self unaccustomed.  There  are  coun- 
tries in  which  the  most  laudable  actions 
appear  very  blameable  and  extremely 
ridiculous,  and  where  the  foulest,  the 
most  diabolical  actions,  pass  for  very 
honest  and  perfectly  rational.* 

Authority  commonly  believes  itself 
interested  in  maintaining  the  received 
opinions ;  those  prejudices  and  those 
errours  which  it  considers  requisite  to 
the  maintenance  of  its  power,  are  sus- 
tained by  force,  which  is  never  ration- 


*  In  some  nations  they  kill  the  old  men ;  in 
some  the  children  strangle  their  fathers.  The 
Phenicians  andtheCarthagenians  immolated 
their  children  to  their  Gods.  Europeans  ap- 
prove duels ;  and  those  who  refuse  to  blow 
out  the  brains  of  another  are  contemplated  by 
them  as  dishonoured.  The  Spaniards,  the 
Portuguese,  think  it  meritorious  to  burn  a 
heretic.  Christians  deem  it  right  to  cut  the 
throats  of  those  who  differ  from  them  in  opi- 
nion. In  some  countries  women  prostitute 
themselves  without  dishonour;  in  others  it  is 
the  height  of  hospitality  for  man  to  present 
his  wife  to  the  embraces  of  the  stranger :  the 
refusal  to  accept  this,  elicits  hia  scorn,  calls 
forth  his  resentment. 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


al.  Princes  filled  with  deceptive  im- 
ages of  happiness  ;  with  mistaken  no- 
tions of  power ;  with  erroneous  opin- 
ions of  grandeur ;  with  false  ideas  of 
glory,  are  surrounded  with  flattering 
courtiers,  who  are  interested  in  keeping 
up  the  delusion  of  their  masters  :  these 
contemptible  men  have  acquired  ideas 
of  virtue  only  that  they  may  outrage 
it :  by  degrees  they  corrupt  the  people, 
these  become  depraved,  lend  them- 
selves to  their  debaucheries,  pander  to 
the  vices  of  the  great,  then  make  a 
merit  of  imitating  them  in  their  irregu- 
larities. A  court  is  the  true  focus  of 
the  corruption  of  a  people. 

This  is  the  true  source  of  moral  evil. 
It  is  thus  that  every  thing  conspires  to 
render  man  vicious,  to  give  a  fatal  im- 
pulse to  his  soul ;  from  whence  results 
the  general  confusion  of  society,  which 
becomes  unhappy  from  the  misery  of 
almost  every  one  of  its  members.  The 
strongest  motive-powers  are  put  in  ac- 
tion to  inspire  man  with  a  passion  fcr 
futile  or  indifferent  objects,  which 
make  him  be'come  dangerous  to  his 
fellow  man  by  the  means  which  he  is 
compelled  to  employ  in  order  to  obtain 
them.  Those  who  have  the  charge  of 
guiding  his  steps,  either  impostors 
themselves,  or  the  dupes  to  their  own 
prejudices,  forbid  him  to  hearken  to 
reason ;  they  make  truth  appear  dan<- 
gerous  to  him,  and  exhibit  errour  as  re- 
quisite to  his  welfare,  not  only  in  this 
world  but  in  the  next.  In  short,  habit 
strongly  attaches  him  to  his  irrational 
opinions — to  his  perilous  inclinations 
— to  his  blind  passion  for  objects  either 
useless  or  dangerous.  Here  then  is  the 
reason  why  for  the  most  part  man  finds 
himself  necessarily  determined  to  evil; 
the  reason  why  the  passions,  inherent 
in  his  nature  and  necessary  to  his  con- 
servation, become  the  instruments  of 
his  destruction,  the  bane  of  that  society 
which  they  ought  to  preserve.  Here, 
then,  the  reason  why  society  becomes 
a  state  of  warfare,  and  why  it  does 
nothing  but  assemble  enemies,  who  are 
envious  of  each  other  and  always  rivals 
for  the  prize.  If  some  virtuous  beings 
are  to  be  found  in  these  societies,  they 
must  be  sought  for  in  the  very  small 
number  of  those,  who,  born  with  a 
phlegmatic  temperament,  have  moder- 
ate passions,  who  therefore  either  do 
not  desire  at  all,  or  desire  very  feebly, 


those  objects  with  which  their  associ 
ates  are  continually  inebriated. 

Man's  nature  diversely  cultivated, 
decides  upon  his  faculties,  as  well  cor- 
poreal as  intellectual — upon  his  quali- 
ties, as  well  moral  as  physical.  The 
man  who  is  of  a  sanguine,  robust  con- 
stitution, must  necessarily  have  strong 
passions :  he  who  is  of  a  bilious,  me- 
lancholy habit,  will  as  necessarily  have 
fantastical  and  gloomy  passions:  the 
man  of  a  gay  turn,  of  a  sprightly  ima- 
gination, will  have  cheerful  passions  ; 
while  the  man,  in  whom  phlegm 
abounds,  will  have  those  which  are 
gentle,  or  which  have  a  very  slight  de- 
gree of  violence.  It  appears  to  be  upon 
the  equilibrium  of  the  humours  that  de- 
pends the  state  of  the  man  who  is  call- 
ed virtuous :  his  temperament  seems 
to  be  the  result  of  a  combination,  in 
which  the  elements  or  principles  are 
balanced  with 'such  precision,  that  no 
one  passion  predominates  over  another, 
or  carries  into  his  machine  more  dis- 
order than  its  neighbour.  Habit,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  man's  nature  modifi- 
ed :  this  latter  furnishes  the  matter ; 
education,  domestic  example,  national 
manners,  give  it  the  form :  these  acting 
on  his  temperament,  make  him  either 
reasonable  or  irrational,  enlightened  or 
stupid,  a  fanatic  or  a  hero,  an  enthu- 
thiast  for  the  public  good,  or  an  un- 
bridled criminal,  a  wise  man  smitten 
with  the  advantages  of  virtue  or  a  liber- 
tine plunged  into  every  kind  of  vice. 
All  the  varieties  of  the  moral  man  de- 
pend on  the  diversity  of  his  ideas.  ' 
which  are  themselves  arranged  and 
combined  in  his  brain  by  the  interven- 
tion of  his  senses.  His  temperament 
is  the  produce  of  physical  substances ; 
his  habits  are  the  effect  of  physical  mo- 
difications ;  the  opinions,  whether  good 
or  bad,  injurious  or  beneficial,  true  or 
false,  which  form  themselves  in  his 
mind,  are  never  more  than  the  effect  of 
those  physical  impulsions  which  the 
brain  receives  by  the  medium  of  the  . 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Soul  does  not  derive  its  Ideas  from  itself. 
It  has  no  innate  Ideas. 

WHAT  has  preceded  suffices  to  prove 
that  the  interior  organ  of  man,  which 


76 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


is  called  his  «m/,  is  purely  material. 
He  will  be  enabled  to  convince  him- 
self of  this  truth,  by  the  manner  in 
which  he  acquires  his  ideas ;  from  those 
impressions,  which  material  objects 
successively  make  on  his  organs,  which 
are  themselves  acknowledged  to  be 
material.  It  has  been  seen  that  the  fa- 
culties which  are  called  intellectual, 
are  to  be  ascribed  to  that  of  feeling ; 
the  different  qualities  of  those  faculties, 
which  are  called  moral,  have  been  ex- 
plained after  the  necessary  laws  of  a 
very  simple  mechanism :  it  now  re- 
mains to  reply  to  those  who  still  ob- 
stinately persist  in  making  the  soul 
a  substance  distinguished  from  the 
body,  or  who  insist  on  giving  it  an 
essence  totally  distinct.  They  seem 
to  found  their  distinction  upon  this, 
that  this  interior  organ  has  the  facultv 
of  drawing  its  ideas  from  within  itself; 
they  will  have  it  that  man,  at  his  birth, 
brings  with  him  ideas  into  the  world, 
which  according  to  this  wonderful  no- 
tion, they  have  called  innate.*  They 
have  believed,  then,  that  the  soul,  by  a 
special  privilege,  in  a  nature  where 
every  thing  is  connected,  enjoyed  the 
faculty  of  moving  itself  without  receiv- 
ing any  impulse ;  of  creating  to  itself 
ideas,  of  thinking  on  a  subject,  without 
being  determined  to  such  action  by  any 
exterior  object,  which,  by  moving  its 
organs,  should  furnish  it  with  an  image 
of  the  subject  of  its  thoughts.  In  con- 
sequence of  these  gratuitous  supposi- 
tions, which  it  is  only  requisite  to  ex- 
pose in  order  to  confute,  some  very  able 
speculators,  who  were  prepossessed  by 
their  superstitious  prejudices,  have 
ventured  the  length  to  assert,  that, 
without  model,  without  prototype,  to 
act  on  the  senses,  the  soul  is  competent 

*  Some  ancient  philosophers  have  held,  that 
the  soul  originally  contains  the  principles  of 
several  notions  or  doctrines:  the  Stoics  de- 
signated this  by  the  term  n^^'"'  anticipa- 
ted opinions ;  the  Gre'ek  mathematicians 
Ko/m  Evr;«c,  universal  ideas.  The  Jews 
have  a  similar  doctrine  which  they  borrowed 
from  the  Chaldeans;  their  Rabbins  taught 
that  each  soul,  before  it  was  united  to  the 
seed  that  must  form  an  infant  in  the  womb 
of  a  woman,  is  confided  to  the  care  of  an 
angel,  which  causes  him  to  behold  heaven, 
earth,  and  hell :  this,  they  pretend,  is  done  by 
the  assistance  of  a  lamp  which  extinguishes 
itself,  as  soon  as  the  infant  comes  into  the 
world.  See  Gaulmin.  De  vita  el  morte 
Afotis. 


to  delineate  to  itself  the  whole  uni- 
verse, with  all  the  beings  it  contains. 
Descartes  and  his  disciples  have  as- 
sured us,  that  the  body  went  absolutely 
for  nothing  in  the  sensations  or  ideas 
of  the  soul ;  that  it  can  feel — that  it 
can  perceive,  understand,  taste,  and 
touch,  even  when  there  should  exist 
nothing  that  is  corporeal  or  material 
exterior  to  ourselves. 

But  what  shall  be  said  of  a  Berke- 
ley, who  has  endeavoured  to  prove  to 
man,  that  every  thing  in  this  world  is 
nothing  more  than  a  chimerical  illu- 
sion, and  that  the  universe  exists  no- 
where but  in  himself:  that  it  has  no 
identity  but  in  his  imagination  ;  who 
has  rendered  the  existence  of  all  things 
problematical  by  the  aid  of  sophisms, 
insolvable  even  to  those  who  maintain 
the  doctrine  of  the  spirituality  of  the 
soul.f 

To  justify  such  monstrous  opinions, 
they  assert  that  ideas  are  only  the  ob- 
jects of  thought.  But  according  to 
the  last  analysis,  these  ideas  can  only 
reach  man  from  exterior  objects,  which, 
in  giving  impulse  to  his  senses,  modify 
his  brain ;  or  from  the  material  beings 
contained  within  the  interior  of  his 
machine,  who  make  some  parts  of  his 
body  experience  those  sensations  which 
he  perceives,  and  which  furnish  him 
with  ideas,  which  he  relates,  faithfully 
or  otherwise,  to  the  cause  that  moves 
him.  Each  idea  is  an  effect,  but  how- 
ever difficult  it  may  be  to  recur  to  the 
cause,  can  we  possibly  suppose  it  is 
not  ascribable  to  a  cause?  If  we*can 
only  form  ideas  of  material  substances, 


t  Extravagant  as  this  doctrine  of  the  bishop 
of  Cloyne  may  appear,  it  cannot  well  be  more 
so  than  that  of  Malebranche,  the  champion 
of  innate  ideas,  who  makes  the  divinity  the 
common  bond  between  the  soul  and  thebodv : 
or  than  that  of  those  metaphysicians  who 
maintain,  that  the  soul  is  a  substance  hetero- 
geneous to  the  body,  and,  who,  by  ascribing 
to  this  soul  the  thoughts  of  man,  have,  in  fact, 
rendered  the  body  superfluous.  They  have 
not  perceived,  they  were  liable  to  one  solid 
objection,  which  is,  that  if  the  ideas  of  man 
are  innate,  if  he  derives  them  from  a  superior 
being,  independent  of  exterior  causes,  if  he 
sees  every  thing  in  God  ;  how  comes  it  that 
so  many  false  ideas  are  afloat,  that  so  many 
errours  prevail  with  which  the  human  mind  is 
saturated  ?  From  whence  come  those  opin- 
ions which,  according  to  the  theologians,  are 
so  displeasing  to  God?  Might  it  not  be  a 
question  to  the  Malebranchists,  was  it  in  the 
Divinity  that  Spinosa  beheld  his  system  ? 


OP  THE~SOUL. 


77 


how  can  we  suppose  the  cause  of  ou 
ideas  can  possibly  be  immaterial?    To 
pretend  that  man,  without  the  aid  of 
exterior  objects,  without  the  interven- 
tion of  his  senses,  is  competent  to  form 
ideas  of  the  Universe,  is  to  assert,  tha 
a  blind  man  is  in  a  capacity  to  form  i 
true  idea  of  a  picture  that  represents 
some  fact  of  which  he  has  never  heard 
any  one  speak. 

It  is  very  easy  to  perceive  the  source 
of  those  errours  into  which  men,  other- 
wise extremely  profound  and  very  en- 
lightened, have  fallen,  when  they  have 
been  desirous  to  speak  of  the  soul  and 
of  its  operations.  Obliged,  either  by 
thei»  own  prejudices,  or  by  the  fear  of 
combating  the  opinions  of  an  imperi- 
ous theology,  they  have  become  the 
•advocates  of  the  principle,  that  the 
soul  was  a  pure  spirit,  an  immaterial 
substance,  of  an  essence  directly  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  the  body,  or  from 
•every  thing  we  behold :  this  granted, 
they  have  been  incompetent  to  conceive 
how  material  objects  could  operate,  or 
in  what  manner  gross  and  corporeal 
organs  were  enabled  to  act  on  a  sub- 
stance that  had  no  kind  of  analogy  with 
them,  and  how  they  were  in  a  capacity 
to  modify  it  by  conveying  it  ideas ;  in 
the  impossibility  of  explaining  this  phe- 
nomenon, at  the  same  time  perceiving 
that  the  soul  had  ideas,  they  concluded 
that  it  must  draw  them  from  itself,  and 
not  from  those  beings,  which  accord- 
ing to  their  own  hypothesis,  were  in- 
capable of  acting  on  it ;  they  therefore 
imagined  that  all  the  modifications  of 
this  soul,  sprung  from  its  own  peculiar 
energy,  were  imprinted  on  it  from  its 
first  formation  by  the  author  of  nature 
— an  immaterial  being  like  itself;  and 
that  these  did  not  in  any  manner  de- 
pend upon  the  beings  of  which  we 
have  a  knowledge,  or  which  act  upon 
it  by  the  gross  means  of  our  senses. 

There  are,  however,  some  phenom- 
ena which,  considered  superficially, 
appear  to  support  the  opinion  of  these 
philosophers,  and  to  announce  a  facul- 
ty in  the  human  soul  of  producing  ideas 
within  itself,  without  any  exterior  aid  ; 
these  are  dreams,  in  which  the  interior 
organ  of  man,  deprived  of  objects  that 
move  it  visibly,  does  not,  however, 
cease  to  have  ideas,  to  be  set  in  ac- 
tivity, and  to  be  modified  in  a  manner 
that  is  sufficiently  sensible  to  have  an 


influence  upon  his  body.  But  if  a  little 
reflection  be  called  in,  the  solution  to 
this  difficulty  will  be  found  :  it  will  be 
perceived,  that,  even  during  sleep,  his 
brain  is  supplied  with  a  multitude  of 
ideas,  with  which  the  eve  or  time  be- 
fore has  stocked  it ;  these  ideas  were 
communicated  to  it  by  exterior  and  cor- 
poreal objects,  by  which  it  has  been 
modified :  it  will  be  found  that  these 
modifications  renew  themselves,  not  by 
any  spontaneous  or  voluntary  motion 
on  its  part,  but  by  a  chain  of  involun- 
tary movements  which  take  place  in 
his  machine,  which  determine  or  ex- 
cite those  that  give  play  to  the  brain ; 
these  modifications  renew  themselves 
with  more  or  less  fidelity,  with  a  great- 
er or  lesser  degree  of  conformity  to 
those  which  it  has  anteriorly  experi- 
enced. Sometimes  in  dreaming  he  has 
memory,  then  he  retraces  to  himself 
the  objects  which  have  struck  him 
faithfully ;  at  other  times,  these  modi- 
fications renew  themselves  without 
order,  without  connexion,  or  very  dif- 
ferently from  those  which  real  objects 
have  before  excited  in  his  interior 
organ.  If  in  a  dream  he  believe  he 
sees  a  friend,  his  brain  renews  in  itself 
the  modifications  or  the  ideas  which 
this  friend  had  formerly  excited,  in  the 
same  order  that  they  arranged  them- 
selves when  his  eyes  really  beheld 
him  ;  this  is  nothing  more  than  an  ef- 
fect of  memory.  If,  in  his  dream,  he] 
fancy  he  sees  a  monster  which  has  no 
model  in  nature,  his  brain  is  then  mo- 
dified in  the  same  manner  that  it  was 
by  the  particular  or  detached  ideas  with 
which  it  then  does  nothing  more  than 
compose  an  ideal  whole,  by  assembling 
and  associating,  in  a  ridiculous  man- 
ner, the  scattered  ideas  that  were  con- 
signed to  its  keeping ;  it  is  then,  that 
in  dreaming  he  has  imagination. 

Those  dreams  that  are  troublesome^ 
extravagant,  whimsical,  or  unconnect- 
ed, are  commonly  the  effect  of  some 
onfusion  in  his  machine ;  such  as 
sainful  indigestion,  an  overheated 
slood,  a  prejudicial  fermentation,  &c. 
— these  material  causes  excite  in  his 
5ody  a  disorderly  motion,  which  pre- 
cludes the  brain  from  being  modified 
n  the  same  manner  it  was  on  the  day 
Before  ;  in  consequence  of  this  irregu- 
ar  motion,  the  brain  is  disturbed,  it 
only  represents  to  itself  confused  ideas 


79 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


that  want  connexion.  When  in  a 
dream  he  believes  he  sees  a  sphinx,* 
either  he  has  seen  the  representation 
of  one  when  he  was  awake,  or  else  the 
disorderly  motion  of  the  brain  is  such, 
that  it  causes  it  to  combine  ideas,  to 
connect  parts,  from  which  there  results 
a  whole  without  model,  of  which  the 
parts  were  not  formed  to  be  united. 
It  is  thus,  that  his  brain  combines  the 
head  of  a  woman,  of  which  it  already 
has  the  idea,  with  the  body  of  a  lioness, 
of  which  it  also  has  the  image.  In  this 
his  head  acts  in  the  same  manner  as 
when,  by  any  defect  in  the  interior  or- 
gan, his  disordered  imagination  paints 
to  him  some  objects,  notwithstanding 
he  is  awake.  He  frequently  dreams 
without  being  asleep :  his  dreams  never 
produce  any  thing  so  strange  but  that 
they  have  some  resemblance  with  the 
objects  which  have  anteriorly  acted  on 
his  senses,  or  have  already  communi- 
cated ideas  to  his  brain.  The  crafty 
theologians  have  composed  at  their 
leisure,  and  in  their  waking  hours,  those 
phantoms  of  which  they  avail  them- 
selves to  terrify  man  ;  they  have  done 
nothing  more  than  assemble  the  scat- 
tered traits  which  they  have  found  in 
the  most  terrible  beings  of  their  own 
species  ;  by  exaggerating  the  powers 
and  the  rights  claimed  by  tyrants,  they 
have  formed  Gods  before  whom  man 
trembles. 

Thus  it  is  seen  that  dreams,  far  from 
proving  that  the  soul  acts  by  its  own 
peculiar  energy,  or  draws  its  ideas  from 
its  own  recesses,  prove,  on  the  contrary, 
that  in  sleep  it  is  entirely  passive,  that 
it  does  not  even  renew  its  modifica- 
tions, but  according  to  the  involuntary 
confusion,  which  physical  causes  pro- 
duce in  the  body,  of  which  every  thing 
tends  to  show  the  identity  and  the  con- 
substantiality  with  the  soul.  What 
appears  to  have  led  those  into  a  mis- 
take, who  maintained  that  the  soul 
drew  its  ideas  from  itself,  is  this,  they 
have  contemplated  these  ideas  as  if 
they  were  real  beings,  when,  in  point 
of  fact,  they  are  nothing  more  than  the 
modifications  produced  in  the  brain  of 
man  by  objects  to  which  this  brain  is 

*  A  being  supposed  by  the  poets  to  have  a 
head  and  face  like  a  woman,  a  body  like  a 
dog,  wings  like  a  bird,  and  claws  like  a  lion, 
who  put  forth  riddles  and  killed  those  who 
could  not  expound  them. 


a  stranger;  they  are  these  objects,  who 
are  the  true  models  or  archetypes  to 
which  it  is  necessary  to  recur :  here  is 
the  source  of  their  errours. 

In  the  individual  who  dreams,  the 
soul  does  not  act  more  from  itself  than 
it  does  in  the  man  who  is  drunk,  that 
is  to  say,  who  is  modified  by  some 
spirituous  liquor ;  or  than  it  does  in  the 
sick  man  when  he  is  delirious,  that  is 
to  say,  when  he  is  modified  by  those 
physical  causes  which  disturb  his  ma- 
chine in  the  performance  of  its  func- 
tions; or  than  it  does  in  him  whose 
brain  is  disordered :  dreams,  like  these 
various  states,  announce  nothing  more 
than  a  physical  confusion  in  the  human 
machine,  under  the  influence  of  which 
the  brain  ceases  to  act  after  a  precise 
and  regular  manner :  this  disorder  may 
be  traced  to  physical  causes,  such  as 
the  aliments,  the  humours,  the  combina- 
tions, the  fermentations,  which  are  but 
little  analogous  to  the  salutary  state  of 
man;  from  which  it  will  appear,  that 
his  brain  is  necessarily  confused  when- 
ever his  body  is  agitated  in  an  extra- 
ordinary manner. 

Do  not  let  him,  therefore,  believe  that" 
his  soul  acts  by  itself,  or  without  a 
cause,  in  any  one  moment  of  his  exist- 
ence; it  is,  conjointly  with  the  body, 
submitted  to  the  impulse  of  beings  who  i 
act  on  him  necessarily,  and  according.] 
to  their  various  properties.  Wine,  taken 
in  too  great  a  quantity,  necessarily  dis- 
turbs his  ideas,  causes  confusion  in  his 
corporeal  functions,  occasions  disorder 
in  his  mental  faculties. 

If  there  really  existed  a  being  in 
nature  with  the  capability  of  moving 
itself  by  its  own  peculiar  energies,  that 
is  to  say,  able  to  produce  motion  inde- 
pendent of  all  other  causes,  such  a 
being  would  have  the  power  of  arrest- 
ing itself,  or  of  suspending  the  motion 
of  the  universe,  which  is  nothing  more 
than  an  immense  chain  of  causes  linked 
one  to  the  other,  acting  and  reacting 
by  necessary  and  by  immutable  laws, 
which  cannot  be  changed  or  suspended, 
unless  the  essences  of  every  thing  in  it 
were  changed — nay,  annihilated.  In 
the  general  system  of  the  world,  nothing 
more  can  be  perceived  than  a  long  series 
of  motion,  received  and  communicated 
in  succession  by  beings  capacitated  to 
give  impulse  to  each  other:  it  is  thus 
that  each  body  is  moved,  by  the  collision 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


79 


of  some  other  body.  The  invisible  mo- 
tion of  his  soul , is  to  be  attributed  to 
causes  concealed  within  himself;  he 
believes  that  it  is  moved  by  itself, 
because  he  does  ^ot  see  the  springs 
which  put  it  in  motion,  or  because  he 
conceives  those  motive-powers  are  in- 
capable of  producing  the  effects  he  so 
much  admires :  but,  does  he  more 
clearly  conceive  how  a  spark  in  ex- 
ploding gunpowder  is  capable  of  pro- 
ducing the  terrible  effects  he  witnesses? 
The  source  of  his  errours  arises  from 
this,  that  he  regards  his  body  as  gross 
and  inert,  whilst  this  body  is  a  sensible 
machine,  which  has  necessarily  an 
instantaneous  conscience  the  moment 
it  receives  an  impression,  and  which  is 
conscious  of  its  own  existence  by  the 
recollection  of  impressions  successively 
experienced ;  memory,  by  resuscitating 
an  impression  anteriorly  received,  by 
detaining  it,  or  by  causing  an  impression 
which  it  receives  to  remain,  whilst  it 
associates  it  with  another,  then  with 
a  third,  gives  all  the  mechanism  of 
reasoning. 

An  idea,  which  is  only  an  impercep- 
tible modification  of  the  brain,  gives 
play  to  the  organ  of  speech,  which  dis- 
plays itself  by  the  motion  it  excites  in 
the  tongue :  this,  in  its  turn,  breeds 
ideas,  thoughts,  passions,  in  those  beings 
who  are  provided  with  organs  suscep- 
tible of  receiving  analogous  motion; 
in  consequence  of  which,  the  wills  of 
a  great  number  of  men  are  influenced, 
who,  combining  their  efforts,  produce 
a  revolution  in  a  state,  or  even  have  an 
influence  over  the  entire  globe.  It  is 
thus  that  an  Alexander  decided  the 
fate  of  Asia  ;  it  is  thus  that  a  Mahomet 
changed  the  face  of  the  earth ;  it  is  thus 
that  imperceptible  causes  produce  the 
most  terrible,  the  most  extended  effects, 
by  a  series  of  necessary  motion  im- 
printed on  the  brain  of  man. 

The  difficulty  of  comprehending  the 
effects  produced  on  the  soul  of  man, 
has  made  him  attribute  to  it  those 
incomprehensible  qualities  which  have 
been  examined.  By  the  aid  of  imagina- 
tion, by  the  power  of  thought,  this  soul 
appears  to  quit  his  body,  to  transport 
itself  with  the  utmost  facility  towards 
the  most  distant  objects;  to  run  over 
and  to  approximate  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye  all  the  points  of  the  universe : 
he  has  therefore  believed  that  a  being. 


who  is  susceptible  of  such  rapid  motion, 
must  be  of  a  nature  very  distinguished 
from  all  others ;  he  has  persuaded  him- 
self that  this  soul  in  reality  does  travel, 
that  it  actually  springs  over  the  immense 
space  necessary  to  meet  these  various 
objects ;  he  did  not  perceive,  that  to  do 
it  in  an  instant,  it  had  only  to  run  over 
itself,  and  approximate  the  ideas  con- 
signed to  its  keeping  by  means  of  the 
senses. 

Indeed,  it  is  never  by  any  other  means 
than  by  his  senses,  that  beings  become 
known  to  man,  or  furnish  him  with 
ideas ;  it  is  only  in  consequence  of  the 
impulse  given  to  his  body,  that  his  brain 
is  modified ;  or  that  his  soul  thinks,  wills, 
and  acts.  If,  as  Aristotle  asserted  more 
than  two  thousand  years  ago,  "  nothing 
enters  the  mind  of  man,  but  through, 
the  medium  of  his  sensts ;"  it  follows 
as  a  consequence,  that  every  thing  that 
issues  from  it,  must  find  some  sensible 
object  to  which  it  can  attach  its  ideas, 
whether  immediately,  as  a  man,  a  tree, 
a  bird,  &c.,  or  in  the  last  analysis  or 
decomposition,  such  as  pleasure,  happi- 
ness, vice,  virtue,  &c.*  Whenever, 
therefore,  a  word  or  its  idea,  does  not 
connect  itself  with  some  sensible  object, 
to  which  it  can  be  related,  this  word, 
or  this  idea,  is  unmeaning,  is  void  of 
sense :  it  were  better  for  man  that  the 
idea  was  banished  from  his  mind,  struck 
out  of  his  language.  This  principle  is 
only  the  converse  of  the  axiom  of  Aris- 
totle ;  if  the  direct  be  evident,  the  inverse 
must  be  so  likewise. 

How  has  it  happened,  that  the  pro- 
found Locke,  who,  to  the  great  morti- 
fication of  the  metaphysicians,  has 
placed  this  principle  of  Aristotle  in  the 
clearest  point  of  view ;  how  is  it  that 
all  those  who,  like  him,  have  recognised 
the  absurdity  of  the  system  of  innate 
ideas,  have  not  drawn  the  immediate 
and  necessary  consequences  1  How 
has  it  come  to  pass,  that  they  have  not 
had  sufficient  courage  to  apply  so  clear 
a  principle  to  all  those  fanciful  chimeras 
with  which  the  human  mind  has  for 
such  a  length  of  time  been  so  vainly 
occupied  1  Did  they  not  perceive,  that 
their  principle  sapped  the  very  founda- 


*  This  principle,  so  true,  so  luminous,  so 
important  in  its  consequence,  has  been  set 
forth  in  all  its  lustre  by  a  great  number  of 
philosophers;  among  the  rest,  by  the  great 
Locke. 


80 


OF  THE  SOUL, 


lions  of  that  theology,  which  never 
occupies  man  but  with  those  objects,  of 
which,  as  they  are  inaccessible  to  his 
senses,  he,  consequently,  can  never 
form  to  himself  any  accurate  idea  ? 
But  prejudice,  particularly  when  it  is 
held  sacred,  prevents  him  from  seeing 
the  most  simple  application  of  the  most 
self-evident  principles ;  in  religious  mat- 
ters, the  greatest  men  are  frequently 
nqthing  more  than  children,  who  are 
-incapable  of  either  foreseeing  or  de- 
ducing the  consequence  of  their  own 
data. 

Locke,  as  well  as  all  those  who  have 
adopted  his  system,  which  is  so  demon- 
.  strable,  or  the  axiom  of  Aristotle,  which 
is"  so  clear,  ought  to  have  concluded 
from  it,  that  all  those  wonderful  things 
with  which  theologians  have  amused 
themselves,  are  mere  chimeras ;  that 
an  immaterial  spirit  or  substance,  with- 
out extent,  without  parts,  is  nothing 
more  than  an  absence  of  ideas ;  in  short, 
they  ought  to  have  felt,  that  the  ineffable 
intelligence  which  they  have  supposed 
to  preside  at  the  helm  of  the  world,  is 
nothing  more  than  a  being  of  their  own 
imagination,  of  which  it  is  impossible 
his  senses  can  ever  prove  either  the 
•existence  or  the  qualities. 

For  the  same  reason  moral  philoso- 
phers ought  to  have  concluded,  that 
what  is  called  moral  sentiment,  moral 
instinct,  that  is,  innate  ideas  of  virtue, 
anterior  to  all  experience  of  the  good 
or  bad  effects  resulting  from  its  practice, 
are  mere  chimerical  notions,  which,  like 
a  great  many  others,  have  for  their 
guarantee  and  base  only  theological 
speculation.*  Before  man  can  judge, 
he  must  feel ;  before  he  can  distinguish 
good  from  evil,  he  must  compare. 

To  undeceive  him  with  respect  to 
innate  ideas  or  modifications  imprinted 
on  his  soul  at  the  moment  of  his  birth, 
it  is  simply  requisite  to  recur  to  their 
source;  he  will  then  see,  that  those 

*  Morals  is  a  science  of  facts :  to  found 
it,  therefore,  on  an  hypothesis  inaccessible 
to  his  senses,  of  which  he  has  no  means 
of  proving  the  reality,  is  to  render  it  uncer 
tain ;  it  is  to  cast  the  log  of  discord  into  his 
lap ;  to  cause  him  unceasingly  to  dispute  upon 
that  which  he  can  never  understand.  To 
assert  that  the  ideas  of  morals  are  innate,  or 
the  effect  of  instinct,  is  to  pretend  that  man 
knows  how  to  read  before  he  has  learned  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet ;  that  he  is  acquainted 
with  the  laws  of  society,  before  they  are  either 
made  or  promulgated. " 


with  which  he  is  familiar,  which  have, 
as  it  were,  identified  themselves  with 
his  existence,  have  all  come  to  him 
through  the  medium  of  some  of  his 
senses;  that  they  are  sometimes  en- 
graven on  his  brain  with  great  difficulty, 
that  they  have  never  been  permanent,, 
and  that  they  have  perpetually  varied 
in  him :  he  will  see  that  these  pretended 
inherent  ideas  of  his  soul,  are  the  effect 
of  education,  of  example,  above  all,  of 
habit,  which,  by  reiterated  motion,  has 
taught  his  brain  to  associate  his  ideas, 
either  in  a  confused  or  perspicuous 
manner ;  to  familiarize  itself  with  sys- 
tems, either  rational  or  absurd.  In  short, 
he  takes  those  for  innate  ideas,  of  which 
he  has  forgotten  the  origin ;  he  no  longer 
recalls  to  himself  either  the  precise 
epoch  or  the  successive  circumstances 
when  these  ideas  were  first  consigned 
to  his  brain :  arrived  at  a  certain  age, 
he  believes  he  has  always  had  the  same 
notions ;  his  memory,  crowded  with 
experience  and  a  multitude  of  facts, 
is  no  longer  able  to  distinguish  the 
particular  circumstances  which  have 
contributed  to  give  his  brain  its  present 
modifications,  its  instantanetfus  mode 
of  thinking,  its  actual  opinions.  For 
example,  not  one  of  his  race  recollects 
the  first  time  the  word  God  struck  his 
ears,  the  first  ideas  that  it  formed  in 
him,  the  first  thoughts  that  it  produced 
in  him ;  nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that 
from  thence  he  has  searched  for  some 
being  with  whom  to  connect  the  idea 
which  he  has  either  formed  to  himself, 
or  which  has  been  suggested  to  him: 
accustomed  to  hear  God  continually 
spoken  of,  he  has,  when  in  other  respects 
most  enlightened,  regarded  this  idea  as 
if  it  were  infused  into  him  by  nature ; 
whilst  it  is  clearly  to  be  attributed  to 
those  delineations  of  it  which  his  pa- 
rents or  his  instructers  have  made  to 
him,  and  which  he  has  afterwards  modi 
fied  according  to  his  own  particular 
organization,  and  the  circumstances  in 
which  he  has  been  placed :  it  is  thu? 
that  each  individual  forms  to  himself 
a  God  of  which  he  is  himself  the  model, 
or  which  he  modifies  after  his  own 
fash  ion. f 

His  ideas  of  morals,  although  more 
real  than  those  of  metaphysics,  are  not, 
however,  innate :  the  moral  sentiments 
he  forms  on  the  will,  or  the  judgment 


t  See  Vol.  II.,  Chapter  iv. 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


he  passes  on  the  actions  of  man,  are 
founded  on  experience,  which,  alone, 
can  enable  him  to  discriminate  those 
which  are  either  useful  or  prejudicial, 
virtuous  or  vicious,  honest  or  dishonest, 
worthy  his  esteem  or  deserving  his  cen- 
sure. His  moral  sentiments  are  the  fruit 
of  a  multitude  of  experience,  frequently 
very  long  and  very  complicated.  He 
gathers  it  with  time  :  it  is  more  or  less 
faithful,  by  reason  of  his  particular 
organization,  and  the  causes  by  which 
he  is  modified ;  he  ultimately  applies 
this  experience  with  greater  or  lesser 
facility,  and  on  this  depends  his  habit 
of  judging.  The  celerity  with  whic 
he  applies  his  experience,  when  h 
judges  of  the  moral  actions  of  hi 
fellow  man,  is  what  has  been  terme 
moral  instinct. 

That  which  in  natural  philosophy  is 
called  instinct,  is  only  the  effect  of 
some  want  of  the  body,  the  consequence 
of  some  attraction,  or  some  repulsion, 
in  man  or  animals.  The  child  that  is 
newly  bqrn,  sucks  for  the  first  time: 
the  nipple  of  the  breast  is  put  into 
his  mouih :  the  natural  analogy  that  is 
found  between  the  conglomerate  glands 
which  line  his  mouth,  and  the  milk 
which  flows  from  the  bosom  of  the 
nurse  through  the  medium  of  the  nipple, 
causes  the  child  to  press  it  with  his 
mouth,  in  order  to  express  the  fluid 
appropriate  to  nourish  his  tender  age ; 
from  all  this  the  infant  gathers'  expe- 
rience ;  by  degrees  the  ideas  of  a  nipple, 
of  milk,  of  pleasure,  associate  them- 
selves in  his  brain,  and  every  time  he 
sees  the  nipple,  he  seizes  it,  promptly 
conveys  it  to  his  mouth,  and  applies  it 
to  the  use  for  which  it  is  designed. 

What  has  been  said  will  enable  us 
to  judge  of  those  prompt  and  sudden 
sentiments,  which  have  been  designated 
the  force  of  blood.  Those  sentiments"! 
of  love,  which  fathers  and  mothers  have 
for  their  children;  those  feelings  of 
affection,  which  children,  with  good 
inclinations,  bear  towards  their  parents, 
are  by  no  means  innate  sentiments ; 
they  are  nothing  more  than  the  effect 
of  experience,  of  reflection,  of  habit,  in 
souls  of  sensibility.  These  sentimentsj 
do  not  even  exist  in  a  great  number  of 
human  beings.  We  but  too  often  wit- 
ness tyrannical  parents,  occupied  with 
making  enemies  of  their  children,  who 
appear  to  have  been  formed  only  to 

No.  III.— 11 


be  the  victims  of  their  irrational  ca- 
prices. 

From  the  instant  in  which  man  com- 
mences, until  that  in  which  he  ceases 
to  exist,  he  feels,  he  is  moved  either 
agreeably  or  unpleasantly,  he  collects 
facts,  he  gathers  experience,  which  pro- 
duce ideas  in  his  brain  that  are  either 
cheerful  or  gloomy.  Not  one  individual 
has  this  experience  present  to  his  memo- 
ry at  the  same  time,  nor  does  it  ever 
represent  to  him  the  whole  clew  at  once : 
it  is  however  this  experience  that  me- 
chanically, and  without  his  knowledge, 
directs  him  in  all  his  actions-;  it  was  to 
designate  the  rapidity  with  which  he 
applied  this  experience,  of  which  he  so 
frequently  loses  the  connexion,  of  which 
he  is  so  often  at  a  loss  to  render  himself 
an  account,  that  he  imagined  the  word 
instinct :  it  appears  to  be  the  effect  of 
a  magical  and  supernatural  power  to 
the  greater  number  of  individuals ;  but 
it  is  a  Avord  devoid  of  sense  to  many 
others ;  however,  to  the  philosopher  it 
is  the  effect  of  a  very  lively  feeling, 
which,  to  him,  consists  in  the  faculty 
of  .combining  promptly  a  multitude  of 
experiences  and  a  long  and  numerous 
train  of  extremely  complicated  ideas. 
It  is  want  that  causes  the  inexplicable 
instinct  we  behold  in  animals,  which 
have  been  denied  souls  without  reason ; 
whilst  they  are  susceptible  of  an  infinity 
qf  actions  that  prove  they  think,  they 
judge,  have  memory,  are  capable  of 
experience,  can  combine  ide&s,  can 
apply  them  with  more  or  less  facility 
to  satisfy  the  wants  engendered  by  their 
particular  organization;  in  short,  that 
prove  they  have  passions,  and  that  these 
are  capable  of  being  modified.* 

The  embarrassments  which  animals 
have  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  partisans 
of  the  doctrine  of  spirituality  is  well 
known :  they  have  been  fearful,  if  they 
allowed  them  to  have  a  spiritual  soul, 
of  elevating  them  to  the  condition  of 
humarr  creatures ;  on  the  other  hand, 
in  not  allowing  them  to  have  a  soul, 
they  have  furnished  their  adversaries 
with  authority  to  deny  it  in  like  manner 


*  Nothing  but  the  height  of  folly  can  refuse 
intellectual  faculties  to  animals;  they  feel, 
choose,  deliberate,  express  love,  show  hati  sd ; 
in  many  instances  their  senses  are  much  keener 
than  those  of  man.  Fish  will  return  periodi- 
cally to  the  spot  whers  it  is  the  custom  to 
throw  them  bread. 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


to  man,  who  thus  finds  himself  debased 
to  the  condition  of  the  animal.  Theo- 
logians have  never  known  how  to  extri- 
cate themselves  from  this  difficulty. 
Descartes  fancied  he  solved  it  by  say- 
ing that  beasts  have  no  souls,  are  mere 
machines.  Nothing  can  be  nearer  the 
surface  than  the  absurdity  of  this  prin- 
ciple. Whoever  contemplates  nature 
without  prejudice,  will  readily  acknow- 
ledge, that  there  is  no  other  difference 
between  the  man  and  the  beast  than1 
that  which  is  to  be  attributed  to  the 
diversity  of  his  organization. 

In  some  beings  of  the  human  species, 
who  appear  to  be  endowed  with  a  greater 
sensibility  of  organs  than  others,  may 
be  seen  an  instinct,  by  the  assistance 
of  which  they  very  promptly  judge  of 
the  concealed  dispositions  of  their  fel- 
lows, simply  by  inspecting  the  linea- 
ments of  their  face.  Those  who  are 
denominated  physiognomists,  are  only 
men  of  very  acute  feelings,  who  have 
gathered  an  experience  of  which  others, 
whether  from  the  coarseness  of  their 
organs,  from  the  little  attention  they 
have  paid,  or  from  some  defect  in  their 
senses,  are  totally  incapable :  these  last 
do  not  believe  in  the  science  of  physi- 
ognomy, which  appears  to  them  per- 
fectly ideal.  Nevertheless,  it  is  certain 
that  the  action  of  this  soul,  which  has 
been  made  spiritual,  makes  impressions 
that  are  extremely  marked  upon  the. 
exterior  of  the  body  ;  these  impressions 
continually  reiterated,  their  image  re- 
mains :  thus,  the  habitual  passions  of 
man  paint  themselves  on  his  counte- 
nance, by  which  the  attentive  observer, 
who  is  endowed  with  acute  feeling,  is 
enabled  to  judge  with  great  rapidity  of 
his  mode  of  existence,  and  even  to 
foresee  his  actions,  his  inclinations,  his 
desires,  his  predominant  passions,  &c. 
Although  the  science  of  physiognomy 
appears  chimerical  to  a  great  number 
of  persons,  yet  there  are  few  who  have 
not  a  clear  idea  of  a  tender  regard,  of 
a  cruel  eye,  of  an  austere  aspect,  of  a 
false  and  dissimulating  look,  of  an  open 
countenance,  &c.  Keen  and  practised 
optics  acquire,  without  doubt,  the  faculty 
of  penetrating  the  concealed  motion  of 
the  soul,  by  the  visible  traces  it  leaves 
upon  features  that  it  has  continually 
modified.  Above  all,  the  eyes  of  man 
very  quickly  undergo  changes,  accord- 
ing to  the  motion  which  is  excited  in 


him  :  these  delicate  organs  are  visibly 
altered  by  the  smallest  shock  com- 
municated to  his  brain.  Serene  eyes 
announce  a  tranquil  soul ;  wild  eyes 
indicate  a  restless  mind ;  fiery  eyes 
portray  a  choleric  and  sanguine  tem- 
perament ;  fickle  or  inconstant  eyes 
give  room  to  suspect  a  soul  either 
alarmed  or  dissimulating.  It  is  the 
study  of  this  variety  of  shades  that 
renders  man  practised  and  acute  :  upon 
the  spot  he  combines  a  multitude  of 
acquired  experience,  in  order  to  form 
his  judgment  of  the  person  he  beholds. 
His  judgment  partakes  in  nothing  of 
the  supernatural  or  the  wonderful  : 
such  a  man  is  only  distinguished  by 
the  fineness  of  his  organs,  and  by  the 
celerity  with  which  his  brain  performs 
its  functions. 

It  is  the  same  with  some  beings  of 
the  human  species,  in  whom  may  be 
discovered  an  extraordinary  sagacity, 
which  to  the  uninformed  appears  Divine 
and  miraculous.*  Indeed,  we  see  men 
who  are  capable  of  appreciating  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye  a  multitude  of  cir- 
cumstances, and  who  have  sometimes 
the  faculty  of  foreseeing  the  most  dis- 
tant events,  yet  this  species  of  prophetic 
talent  has  nothing  in  it  of  the  super- 
natural ;  it  indicates  nothing  more  than 
great  experience,  with  an  extremely 
delicate  organization,  from  which  they 
derive  the  faculty  of  judging  with  ex- 
treme facility  of  causes,  and  of  fore- 
seeing their  very  remote  effects.  This 
faculty  is  also  found  in  animals,  who 
foresee  much  better  than  man  the  varia- 
tions of  the  atmosphere,  with  the  various 
changes  of  the  weather.  Birds  have 
long  been  the  prophets  and  even  the 
guides  of  several  nations  who  pretend 
to  be  extremely  enlightened. 

It  is,  then,  to  their  organization, 
exercised  after  a  particular  manner, 
that  must  be  attributed  those  won- 
drous faculties  which  distinguish  some 
beings.  To  have  instinct  only  signifies 
to  judge  quickly,  without  requiring  to 
make  a  long  reasoning  on  the  subject. 
Man's  ideas  upon  vice  and  upon  virtue 
are  by  no  means  innate ;  they  are,  like 


*  It  appears  that  the  most  skilful  practi- 
tioners in  medicine  have  been  men  endowed 
with  very  acute  feelings,  similar  to  those  of  the 
physiognomists,  by  the  assistance  of  which 
they  judged  with  great  facility  of  diseases,  and 
very  promptly  drew  their  prognostics. 


OP  THE  SOUL. 


all  others,  acquired;  the  judgment  he 
forms  is  founded  upon  experience,  whe- 
ther true  or  false :  this  depends  upon 
his  conformation,  and  upon  the  habits 
that  have  modified  him.  The  infant 
has  no  ideas  either  of  the  Divinity  01 
of  virtue :  it  is  from  those  who  instruct 
him  that  he  receives  these  ideas :  he 
makes  more  or  less  use  of  them,  accord- 
ing to  his  natural  organization,  or  as 
his  dispositions  have  been  more  or  less 
exercised.  Nature  gives  man  legs,  t 
nurse  teaches  him  their  use,  his  agilit^ 
depends  upon  their  natural  conforma- 
tion, and  the  manner  in  which  he 
exercises  them. 

What  is  called  taste  in  the  fine  arts, 
is  to  be  attributed,  in  the  same  manner, 
only  to  the  acuteness  of  man's  organs 
practised  by  the  habit  of  seeing,  of 
comparing,  and  of  judging  certain  ob- 
jects: from  whence  results,  to  some  of 
his  species,  the  faculty  of  judging  with 
great  rapidity,  or  in  the  twinkling  of 
an  eye,  the  whole  with  its  various  rela- 
tions. It  is  by  the  force  of  seeing,  of 
feeling,  of  experiencing  objects,  that 
he  attains  to  a  knowledge  of  them ;  it 
is  in  consequence  of  reiterating  this 
experience,  that  he  acquires  the  power 
and  the  habit  of  judging  with  celerity. 
But  this  experience  is  by  no  means 
innate,  for  he  did  not  possess  it  before 
he  was  born ;  he  is  neither  able  to  think, 
to  judge,  nor  to  have  ideas,  before  he 
has  feeling ;  he  is  neither  in  a  capacity 
to  love  nor  to  hate  ;  to  approve  nor  to 
blame,  before  he  has  been  moved  either 
agreeably  or  disagreeably.  This  is, 
however,  what  must  be  supposed  by 
those  who  are  desirous  to  make  man 
admit  innate  ideas,  or  opinions  infused 
by  nature,  whether  in  morals,  theology, 
or  in  any  science.  That  his  mind 
should  have  the  faculty  of  thought, 
and  should  occupy  itself  with  an  object. 
it  is  requisite  it  should  be  acquainted 
with  its  qualities ;  that  it  may  have  a 
knowledge  of  these  qualities,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  some  of  his  senses  should  have 
been  struck  by  them :  those  objects, 
therefore,  of  which  he  does  not  know 
any  of  the  qualities  are  nullities,  or  at 
least  they  do  not  exist  for  him. 

It  will  be  asserted,  perhaps,  that  the 
universal  consent  of  man  upon  certain 
propositions,  such  as  the  whole  is 
greater  than  its  part,  and  upon  all 
geometrical  demonstrations,  appear  to 


warrant  the  supposition  of  certain  pri- 
mary notions  that  are  innate,  or  not 
acquired.  It  may  be  replied,  that  these 
notions  are  always  acquired,  and  that 
they  are  the  fruit  of  an  experience  more 
or  less  prompt ;  that  it  is  requisite  to 
have  compared  the  whole  with  its  part 
before  conviction  can  ensue  that  the 
whole  is  the  greater  of  the  two.  Man, 
when  he  is  born,  does  not  bring  with 
him  the  idea  that  two  and  two  make 
dour;  but  he  is,  nevertheless,  very 
'speedily  convinced  of  its  truth.  Be- 
fore forming  any  judgment  whatever, 
it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  com- 
pared facts. 

It  is  evident  that  those  who  have 
gratuitously  supposed  innate  ideas,  or 
notions  inherent  in  man,  have  con- 
founded his  organization,  or  his  natur- 
al dispositions,  with  the  habit  by  which 
he  is  modified,  and  with  the  greater  or 
less  aptitude  he  has  of  making  experi- 
ments, and  of  applying  them  in  his 
judgment.  A  man  who  has  taste  in 
painting,  has,  without  doubt,  brought 
with  him  into  the  world  eyes  more 
acute  and  more  penetrating  than  an- 
other; but  these  eyes  would  by  no 
means  enable  him  to  judge  with 
promptitude  if  he  had  never  had  occa- 
sion to  exercise  them  ;  much  less,  in 
some  respects,  can  those  dispositions 
which  are  called  natural  be  regarded 
as  innate.  Man  is  not  at  twenty  years 
of  age  the  same  as  he  was  when  he 
came  into  the  world ;  the  physical 
causes  that  are  continually  acting  upon 
him,  necessarily  have  an  influence  upo| 
his  organization,  and  so  modify  it,  th^t 
liis  natural  dispositions  themselves  a|e 
not  at  one  period  what  they  are  at  ap- 
other.*  Every  day  may  be  seen  chil- 
dren who,  to  a  certain  age,  display  a 
great  deal  of  ingenuity,  a  strong  apti- 
tude for  the  sciences,  and  who  finish 
by  falling  into  stupidity.  Others  may 
ae  observed,  \vho,  during  their  infancy, 
lave  shown  dispositions  but  little  fa- 
vourable to  improvement,  yet  develop 
themselves  in  the  end,  and  astonish  us 


*  "We  think,"  says  La  Motte  Le  Vayer, 
1  quite  otherwise  of  things  at  one  time  than  at 
another :  when  young  than  when  old — when 
lungry  than  when  our  appetite  is  satisfied — 
n  the  night  than  in  the  day — when  peevish 
:han  when  cheerful ;  thus  varying  every  hour, 
">y  a  thousand  other  circumstances  which 
ceep  us  in  a  state  of  perpetual  inconstancy 
and  instability." 


84 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


by  an  exhibition  of  those  qualities  of 
which  we  judged  them  deficient:  there 
arrives  a  moment  in  which  the  mind 
makes  use  of  a  multitude  of  experience 
which  it  has  amassed  without  its  hav- 
ing been  perceived,  and,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  expression,  without  their 
own  knowledge. 

Thus,  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeat- 
ed, all  the  ideas,  all  the  notions,  all  the 
modes  of  existence,  all  the  thoughts  of 
man  are  acquired.  His  mind  cannot 
act  and  exercise  itself  but  upon  that  of 
which  it  has  knowledge  ;  it  can  under- 
stand either  well  or  ill  only  those  things 
which  it  has  previously  felt.  Such  of 
his  ideas  that  do  not  suppose  some  ex- 
terior material  object  for  their  model, 
or  one  to  which  he  is  able  to  relate 
them,  which  are  therefore  called  ab- 
stract ideas,  are  only  modes  in  which 
his  interior  organ  considers  its  own  pe- 
culiar modifications,  of  which  it  chooses 
some  without  respect  to  others.  The 
words  which  he  uses  to  designate  these 
ideas,  such  as  bounty,  beauty,  order, 
intelligence,  virtue,  &c.,  do  not  offer 
any  one  sense  if  he  does  not  relate  them 
to,  or  if  he  does  not  explain  them  by 
those  objects  which  his  senses  have 
shown  him  to  be  susceptible  of  those 
qualities,  or  of  those  modes  of  exist- 
ence and  of  acting,  which  are  known 
to  him.  What  is  it  that  points  out  to 
him  the  vague  idea  of  beauty,  if  he 
does  not  attach  it  to  some  object  that 
has  struck  his  senses  in  a  particular 
manner,  to  which,  in  consequence,  he 
attributes  this  quality  ?  What  is  it 
that  represents  the  word  intelligence, 
if  he  does  not  connect  it  with  a  certain 
mode  of  being  and  of  acting?  Does 
the  word  order  signify  any  thing,  if  he 
does  not  relate  it  to  a  series  of  actions, 
to  a  chain  of  motion,  by  which  he  is 
affected  in  a  certain  manner?  Is  not 
the  word  virtue  void  of  sense,  if  he 
does  not  apply  it  to  those  dispositions 
of  his  fellows  which  -produce  known 
effects,  different  from  those  which  re- 
sult from  contrary  inclinations  ?  What 
do  the  words  pain  and  pleasure  offer 
to  his  mind  in  the  moment  Avhen  his 
organs  neither  suffer  nor  enjoy,  if  it  be 
not  the  modes  in  which  he  has  been 
affected,  of  which  his  brain  conserves 
the  remembrance  or  the  impressions, 
and  which  experience  has  shown  him 
to  be  either  useful  or  prejudicial  ?  But 


when  he  hears  the  words  spirituality, 
immateriality,  incorporeality,  divini- 
ty, &c.,  pronounced,  neither  his  senses 
nor  his  memory  afford  him  any  assist- 
ance: they  do  not  furnish  him  Avith 
any  means  by  which  he  can  form  an 
idea  of  their  qualities,  nor  of  the  objects 
to  which  he  ought  to  apply  them :  in 
that  which  is  not  matter,  he  can  only 
see  vacuum  and  emptiness,  which  can- 
not be  susceptible  of  any  one  quality. 

All  the  errours  and  all  the  disputes 
of  men,  have  their  foundation  in  this, 
that  they  have  renounced  experience 
and  the  evidence  of  their  senses,  to  give 
themselves  up  to  the  guidance  of  no- 
tions which  they  have  believed  infused 
or  innate,  although  in  reality  they  are 
no  more  than  the  effect  of  a  distemper- 
ed imagination;  of  prejudices  in  which 
they  have  been  instructed  from  their 
infancy  ;  with  which  habit  has  famili- 
arized them  ;  and  which  authority  has 
obliged  them  to  conserve.  Languages 
are  rilled  with  abstract  words,  to  which 
are  attached  confused  and  vague  ideas ; 
of  which,  when  they  come  to  be  ex- 
amined, no  model  can  be  found  in  na- 
ture ;  no  object  to  which  they  can  be 
related.  When  man  gives  himself  the 
trouble  to  analyze  things,  he  is  quite 
surprised  to  find  that  those  words  which 
are  continually  in  the  mouths  of  men, 
never  present  any  fixed  and  determi- 
nate idea:  he  hears  them  unceasingly 
speaking  of  spirits — of  the  soul  and 
its  faculties — of  God  and  his  attributes 
— of  duration — of  space — of  immen- 
sity— of  infinity — of  perfection — of 
virtue — of  reason — of  sentiment — of 
instinct — of  taste,  &c.,  without  his 
being  able  to  tell  precisely  Avhat  they 
themselves  understand  by  these  words. 
And  yet  words  appear  to  have  been  in- 
vented but  for  the  purpose  of  represent- 
ing the  images  of  things,  or  to  paint, 
by  the  assistance  of  the  senses,  those 
knoAvn  objects  on  Avhich  the  mind  is 
able  to  meditate,  which  it  is  compe- 
tent to  appreciate,  to  compare,  and  to 
judge. 

For  man  to  think  of  that  Avhich  has 
not  acted  on  any  of  his  senses,  is  to 
think  on  words:  it  is  a  dream  of  sounds; 
it  is  to  seek  in  his  own  imagination  for 
objects  to  which  he  can  attach  his 
Avandenng  ideas.  To  assign  qualities 
to  these  objects  is,  unquestionably,  to 
redouble  his  extravagance.  The  word 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


85 


God  is  destined  to  represent  to  him  an 
object  that  has  not  the  capacity  to  act 
on  any  one  of  his  organs,  of  which,  con- 
sequently, it  is  impossible  for  him  to 
prove  either  the  existence  or  the  quali- 
ties ;  still,  his  imagination,  by  dint  of 
racking  itself,  Will  in  some  measure 
supply  him  with  the  ideas  he  wants, 
«ind  compose  some  kind  of  a  picture 
Avith  the  images  or  colours  he  is  always 
•obliged  to  borrow  from  those  objects 
of  which  he  has  a  knowledge :  thus  the 
Divinity  has  been  represented  under 
the  character  of  a  venerable  old  man, 
or  under  that  of  a  puissant  monarch, 
&c.  It  is  evident,  however,  that  man 
with  some  of  his  qualities  has  served 
for  the  model  of  this  picture.  But  if 
he  be  informed  that  this  God  is  a  pure 
spirit ;  that  has  neither  body  nor  ex- 
tent ;  that  he  is  not  contained  in  space ; 
that  he  is  beyond  nature  ;  here  then  he 
Is  plunged  into  emptiness ;  his  mind 
no  longer  has  any  ideas  :  it  no  longer 
knows  upon  what  it  meditates.  This, 
as  will  be  seen  in  the  sequel,  is  the 
source  of  those  unformed  notions  which 
men  have  formed  of  the  divinity  ;  they 
themselves  annihilate  him,  by  assem- 
bling incompatible  and  contradictory 
attributes.*  In  giving  him  moral  and 
'known  qualities,  they  make  him  a 
man ;  in  assigning  him  the  negative 
attributes  of  theology,  they  destroy  all 
antecedent  ideas ;  they  make  him  a 
mere  nothing — a  chimera.  From  this 
it  will  appear  that  those  sublime  sci- 
ences which  are  called  theology,  psy- 
chology, metaphysics,  have  been  mere 
sciences  of  words:  morals  and  politics, 
which  they  too  often  infect,  have,  in 
consequence,  become  inexplicable  enig- 
mas, which  nothing  short  of  the  study 
of  nature  can  enable  us  to  expound. 
f  _  Man  has  occasion  for  truth ;  it  con- 
I  sists  in  a  knowledge  of  the  true  rela- 
j  tions  he  has  with  those  things  which 
can  have  an  influence  on  his  welfare : 
these  relations  are  to  be  known  only  by 
experience :  without  experience  there 
can  be  no  reason  ;  without  reason  man 
is  only  a  blind  creature  who  conducts 
himself  by  chance.  But  how  is  he  to 
acquire  experience  upon  ideal  objects, 
which  his  senses  neither  enable  him 
to  know  nor  to  examine  ?  How  is  he 
to  assure  himself  of  the  existence  and 

*  See  Vol.  II.,  Chap.  iv. 


the  qualities  of  beings  he  is  not  able  to 
feel  ?  How  can  he  judge  whether 
these  objects  be  favourable  or  prejudi- 
cial to  him  ?  How  is  he  to  know  what 
he  ought  to  love,  what  he  should  hate, 
what  to  seek  after,  what  to  shun,  what 
to  do,  what  to  leave  undone  ?  Yet  it 
is  upon  this  knowledge  that  his  condi- 
tion in  this  world  rests — the  only  world 
of  which  he  knows  any  thing ;  it  is 
upon  this  knowledge  that  morals  is 
founded.  From  whence  it  may  be  seen, 
that,  by  causing  him  to  blend  vague 
theological  notions  with  morals,  or  the 
science  of  the  certain  and  invariable  re- 
lations which  subsist  between  man- 
kind, or  by  weakly  establishing  them 
upon  chimerical  beings,  which  have  no 
existence  but  in  his  imagination,  this 
science,  upon  which  the  welfare  of  so- 
ciety so  much  depends,  is  rendered 
uncertain  and  arbitrary,  is  abandoned 
to  the  caprices  of  fancy,  is  not  fixed 
upon  any  solid  basis. 

Beings  essentially  different  by  their 
natural  organization,  by  the  modifica- 
tions they  experience,  by  the  habits 
they  contract,  by  the  opinions  they  ac- 
quire, must  of  necessity  think  different- 
ly. His  temperament,  as  we  have  seen, 
decides  the  mental  qualities  of  man ; 
this  temperament  itself,  is  diversely 
modified  in  him ;  from  whence  it  con- 
secutively follows,  his  imagination  can- 
not possibly  be  the  same,  neither  can 
it  create  to  him  the  same  images. 
Each  individual  is  a  connected  whole, 
of  which  all  the  parts  have  a  necessary 
correspondence.  Different  eyes  must 
see  differently,  must  give  extremely 
varied  ideas  of  the  objects  they  con- 
template, even  when  these  objects  are 
real.  What,  then,  must  be  the  diver- 
sity of  these  ideas  if  the  objects  medi- 
tated upon  do  not  act  upon  the  senses  ? 
Mankind  have  pretty  nearly  the  same 
ideas,  in  the  gross,  of  those  substances 
that  act  on  his  organs  with  vivacity; 
he  is  sufficiently  in  unison  upon  some 
qualities  which  he  contemplates  very 
nearly  in  the  same  manner  ;  I  say  very 
nearly,  because  the  intelligence,  the 
notion,  the  conviction  of  any  one  pro- 
position, however  simple,  however  evi- 
dent, however  clear  it  may  be  suppos- 
ed, is  not,  nor  cannot  be  strictly  the 
same  in  any  two  men.  Indeed,  one 
man  not  being  another  man,  the  first 
cannot,  for  example,  have  rigorously 


68 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


and  mathematically  the  same  notion 
of  unity  as  the  second,  seeing  that  an 
identical  effect  cannot  be  the  result  of 
two  different  causes.  Thus  when  men 
agree  in  their  ideas,  in  their  modes  of 
thinking,  in  their  judgment,  in  their 
passions,  in  their  desires,  and  in  their 
tastes,  their  consent  does  not  arise  from 
their  seeing  or  feeling  the  same  objects 
precisely  in  the  same  manner,  but 
pretty  nearly,  for  language  is  not,,  nor 
cannot  be,  sufficiently  copious  to  de- 
signate the  vast  variety  of  shades,  the 
multiplicity  of  imperceptible  differ- 
ences which  are  to  be  found  in  their 
modes  of  seeing  and  thinking.  Each 
man  has,  I  may  say,  a  language  which 
is  peculiar  to  himself  alone,  and  this 
language  is  incommunicable  to  others. 
What  harmony,  then,  can  possibly  ex- 
ist between  them  when  they  discourse 
with  each  other  upon  objects  only 
known  to  their  imagination  1  Can 
this  imagination  in  one  individual,  ever 
be  the  same  as  in  another  1  How  can 
they  possibly  understand  each  other 
when  they  assign  to  these  objects  quali- 
ties that  can  only  be  attributed  to  the 
particular  manner  in  which  their  brain 
is  affected. 

For  one  man  to  exact  from  another 
that  he  shall  think  like  himself,  is  to 
insist  that  he  shall  be  organized  pre- 
cisely in  the  same  manner,  that  he  shall 
have  been  modified  exactly  the  same  in 
every  moment  of  his  existence ;  that 
he  shall  have  received  the  same  tem- 
perament, the  same  nourishment,  the 
same  education ;  in  a  word,  that  he 
shall  require  that  other  to  be  himself. 
Wherefore  is  it  not  exacted  that  all 
men  shall  have  the  same  features  ?  Is 
man  more  the  master  of  his  opinions  ? 
Are  not  his  opinions  the  necessary  con- 
sequence of  his  nature,  and  of  those 
peculiar  circumstances  which,  from  his 
infancy,  have  necessarily  had  an  influ- 
ence upon  his  mode  of  thinking  and  his 
manner  of  acting?  If  man  be  a  con- 
nected whole,  Avhenever  a  single  fea- 
ture differs  from  his  own,  ought  he  not 
to  conclude  that  it  is  not  possible  his 
brain  can  either  think,  associate  ideas, 
imagine,  or  dream  precisely  in  the 
same  manner  with  that  other. 

The  diversity  in  the  temperament 
of  man  is  the  natural  and  necessary 
source  of  the  diversity  of  his  passions, 
of  his  taste,  of  his  ideas  of  happiness, 


of  his  opinions  of  every  kind.  Thus 
the  same  diversity  will  be  the  fatal 
source  of  his  disputes,  of  his  hatreds, 
and  of  his  injustice,  every  time  he  shall 
reason  upon  unknown  objects,  but  to 
which  he  shall  attach  the  greatest  im- 
portance. He  will  never  understand 
either  himself  or  others  in  speaking  of 
a  spiritual  soul,  or  of  an  immaterial  God 
distinguished  from  nature;  he  will, 
from  that  moment,  cease  to  speak  the 
same  language,  and  he  will  never  at- 
tach the  same  ideas  to  the  same  words. 
What,  then,  shall  be  the  common 
standard  that  shall  decide  which  is  the 
man  that  thinks  most  correctly  ?  What 
is  the  scale  by  which  to  measure  who 
has  the  best  regulated  imagination  ? 
what  balance  shall  be  found  sufficient- 
ly exact  to  determine  whose  knowledge 
is  most  certain  when  he  agitates  sub- 
jects which  experience  cannot  enable 
him  to  examine  ;  that  escape  all  his 
senses;  that  have  no  model;  that  are 
above  reason?  Each  individual,  each 
legislator,  each  speculator,  each  nation, 
has  ever  formed  to  himself  different 
ideas  of  these  things,  and  each  believes 
that  his  own  peculiar  reveries  ought  to 
be  preferred  to  those  of  his  neighbours  ; 
which  always  appear  to  him  as  absurd, 
as  ridiculous,  as  false  as  his  own  can 
possibly  have  appeared  to  his  fellow. 
Each  clings  to  his  own  opinion,  be- 
cause each  retains  his  own  peculiar 
mode  of  existence,  and  believes  his 
happiness  depends  upon  his  attachment 
to  his  prejudices,  which  he  never 
adopts  but  because  he  believes  them 
beneficial  to  his  welfare.  Propose  to 
a  man  to  change  his  religion  for  yours, 
he  will  believe  you  a  madman ;  you 
will  only  excite  his  indignation,  elicit 
his  contempt ;  he  will  propose  to  you, 
in  his  turn,  to  adopt  his  own  peculiar 
opinions ;  after  much  reasoning,  you 
will  treat  each  other  as  absurd  beings, 
ridiculously  opiniated  and  stubborn ; 
and  he  will  display  the  least  folly  who 
shall  first  yield.  But  if  the  adversaries 
become  heated  in  the  dispute,  which 
always  happens  when  they  suppose  the 
matter  important,  or  when  they  Avould 
defend  the  cause  of  their  own  self-love, 
then  their  passions  sharpen,  they  grow 
angry,  quarrels  are  provoked,  they  hate 
each  other,  and  end  by  reciprocal  in- 
jury. It  is  thus,  that  for  opinions 
which  no  man  can  demonstrate,  we 


OF  THE  SOUL. 


see  the  Brahmin  despised;  the  Mo- 
hammedan hated ;  the  Pagan  held  in 
contempt;  and  that  they  oppress  and 
disdain  each  other  with  the  most  ran- 
corous animosity :  the  Christian  burns 
the  Jew  because  he  clings  to  the  faith 
of  his  fathers ;  the  Roman  Catholic 
condemns  the  Prote%tant  to  the  flames, 
and  makes  a  conscience  of  massacring 
him  in  cold  blood  ;  this  reacts  in  his 
turn  ;  again  the  various  sects  of  Chris- 
tians have  leagued  together  against  the 
incredulous,  and  for  a  moment  sus- 
pended their  own  bloody  disputes,  that 
they  might  chastise  their  enemies : 
then,  having  glutted  their  revenge,  they 
returned  with  redoubled  fury  to  wreak 
over  again  their  infuriated  vengeance 
on  each  other. 

If  the  imaginations  of  men  were  the 
same,  the  chimeras  which  they  bring 
forth  would  be  everywhere  the  same ; 
there  would  be  no  disputes  among  them 
on  this  subject  if  they  all  dreamt  in  the 
same  manner;  great  numbers  of  hu- 
man beings  would  be  spared,  if  man 
occupied  his  mind  with  objects  capable 
of  being  known,  of  which  the  existence 
was  proved,  of  which  he  was  compe- 
tent to  discover  the  true  qualities  by 
sure  and  reiterated  experience.  Sys- 
tems of  philosophy  are  subject  to  dis- 
pute only  when  their  principles  are  not 
sufficiently  proved  ;  by  degrees  expe- 
rience, in  pointing  out  the  truth,  ter- 
minates these  quarrels.  There  is  no 
variance  among  geometricians  upon 
the  principles  of  their  science  ;  it  is 
only  raised  when  their  suppositions  are 
false,  or  their  objects  too  much  com- 
plicated. Theologians  find  so  much 
difficulty  in  agreeing  among  them- 
selves, simply  because  in  their  contests 
they  divide  without  ceasing,  not  known 
and  examined  propositions,  but  preju- 
dices with  which  they  have  been  im- 
bued in  their  youth,  in  the  schools,  in 
their  books,  &c.  They  are  perpetually 
reasoning,  not  upon  real  objects,  of 
which  the  existence  is  demonstrated, 
but  upon  imaginary  systems,  of  which 
they  have  never  examined  the  reality ; 
they  found  these  disputes  not  upon 
averred  experience  nor  upon  constant 
facts,  but  upon  gratuitous  suppositions, 
which  each  endeavours  to  convince  the 
other  are  without  solidity.  Finding 
these  ideas  of  long  standing,  and  that 
few  people  refuse  to  admit  them,  they 


take  them  for  incontestable  truths,  that 
ought  to  be  received  merely  upon  being 
announced ;  whenever  they  attach  great 
importance  to  them,  they  irritate  them- 
selves against  the  temerity  of  those 
who  have  the  audacity  to  doubt,  or  even 
to  examine  them. 

If  prejudice  had  been  laid  aside,  it  1 
would  perhaps  have  been  discovered 
that  many  of  those  objects  which  have 
given  birth  to  the  most  shocking,  the 
most  sanguinary  disputes  among  men, 
were  mere  phantoms  which  a  little  ex- 
amination would  have  shown  to  be  un- 
worthy their  notice.  The  most  trifling 
reflection  would  have  shown  him  the 
necessity  of  this  diversity  in  his  no- 
tions, of  this  contrariety  in  his  imagina- 
tion, which  depends  upon  his  natural 
conformation  diversely  modified,  and 
which  necessarily  has  an  influence  over 
his  thoughts,  over  his  will,  and  over 
his  actions.  In  short,  if  he  had  con- 
sulted morals  and  reason,  every  thing 
would  have  proved  to  him,  that  beings 
who  call  themselves  rational,  were 
made  to  think  variously,  without  on 
that  account,  ceasing  to  live  peaceably 
with  each  other,  love  each  other,  and 
lend  each  other  mutual  succours ;  and 
that  whatever  might  be  their  opinions 
upon  subjects  either  impossible  to  be 
known  or  to  be  contemplated  under  the 
same  point  of  view :  every  thing  would 
have  joined  in  evidence  to  convince  him 
of  the  unreasonable  tyranny,  of  the  un- 
just violence,  and  of  the  useless  cruelty 
of  those  men  of  blood,  who  persecute 
mankind  in  order  that  they  may  mould 
others  to  their  own  peculiar  opinions : 
every  thing  would  have  conducted 
mortals  to  mildness,  to  indulgence,  to 
toleration;  virtues  unquestionably  of 
more  real  importance  to  the  welfare 
of  society  than  the  marvellous  specula- 
tions by  which  it  is  divided,  and  by 
which  it  is  frequently  hurried  on  to  sa- 
crifice the  pretended  enemies  to  these 
revered  opinions. 

From  this  it  must  be  evident  of  what 
importance  it  is  to  morals  to  examine 
the  ideas  to  which  it  has  been  agreed  to 
attach  so  much  worth,  and  to  which 
man,  at  the  irrational  command  of  fan- 
atical and  cruel  guides,  is  continually 
sacrificing  his  own  peculiar  happiness 
and  the  tranquillity  of  nations.  Let 
lim  return  to  experience,  to  nature,  and 
o  reason ;  let  him  consult  those  objects 


OF    MAN'S    FREE    AGENCY. 


that  are  real  and  useful  to  his  perma- 
nent felicity ;  let  him  study  nature's 
laws;  let  him  study  himself;  let  him 
consult  the  bonds  which  unite  him  to 
his  fellow  mortals ;  let  him  tear  asun- 
der the  fictitious  bonds  that  enchain 
him  to  a  mere  phantom.  If  his  ima- 
gination must  always  feed  itself  with 
illusions,  if  he  remains  steadfast  in  his 
own  opinions,  if  his  prejudices  are  dear 
to  him,  let  him  at  least  permit  others 
to  ramble  in  their  own  manner  or  seek 
after  truth  as  best  suits  their  inclina- 
tion ;  but  let  him  always  recollect,  that 
all  the  opinions,  all  the  ideas,  all  the 
systems,  all  the  wills,  all  the  actions 
of  man,  are  the  necessary  consequence 
of  his  nature,  of  his  temperament,  of 
his  organization,  and  of  those  causes, 
e;ther  transitory  or  constant,  which 
modify  him :  in  short,  that  man  is  not 
more  a  free  agent  to  think  than  to  act : 
a  truth  that  will  be  again  proved  in  the 
following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Of  the  System  of  Man's  Free  Agency. 

THOSE  who  have  pretended  that  the 
soul  is  distinguished  from  the  body,  is 
immaterial,  draws  its  ideas  from  its 
own  peculiar  source,  acts  by  its  own 
energies,  without  the  aid  of  any  exterior 
object,  have,  by  a  consequence  of  their 
own  system,  enfranchised  it  from  those 
physical  laws  according  to  which  all 
beings  of  which  we  have  a  knowledge 
are  obliged  to  act.  They  have  believed 
that  the  soul  is  mistress  of  its  own 
conduct,  is  able  to  regulate  its  own 
peculiar  operations,  has  the  faculty  to 
determine  its  will  by  its  own  natural 
energy  ;  in  a  word,  they  have  pretended 
that  man  is  a.  free  agent. 

It  has  been  already  sufficiently  proved 
that  the  soul  is  nothing  more  than  the 
:'  body  considered  relatively  to  some  of  its 
( functions  more  concealed  than  others: 
it  has  been  shown  that  this  soul,  even 
when  it  shall  be  supposed  immaterial, 
is  continually  modified  conjointly  with 
the  body,  is  submitted  to  all  its  motion, 
and  that  without  this  it  would  remain 
inert  and  dead :  that,  consequently,  it 
is  subjected  to  the  influence  of  those 
material  and  physical  causes  which 
give  impulse  to  the  body ;  of  which 
the  mode  of  existence,  whether  habitual 


or  transitory,  depends  upon  the  material 
elements  by  which  it  is  surrounded, 
that  form  its  texture,  constitute  its  tem- 
perament, enter  into  it  by  means  of  the 
aliments,  and  penetrate  it  by  their  sub- 
tility.  The  faculties  which  are  called 
intellectual,  and  those  qualities  which 
are  styled  raoraZ,  h^ve  been  explained 
in  a  manner  purely  physical  and  natu- 
ral. In  the  last  place  it  has  been  demon- 
strated that  all  the  ideas,  all  the  systems, 
all  the  affections,  all  the  opinions,  whe- 
ther true  or  false,  which  man  forms  to 
himself,  are  to  be  attributed  to  his 
physical  and  material  senses.  Thus 
man  is  a  being  purely  physical ;  in 
whatever  manner  he  is  considered,  he 
is  connected  to  universal  nature,  and 
submitted  to  the  necessary  and  immu- 
table laws  that  she  imposes  on  all  the 
beings  she  contains,  according  to  their 
peculiar  essences  or  to  the  respective 
properties  with  which,  without  consult- 
ing them,  she  endows  each  particular 
species.  Man's  life  is  a  line  that  nature 
commands  him  to  describe  upon  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  without  his  ever 
being  able  to  swerve  from  it.  even  for 
an  instant.  He  is  born  without  hisl 
own  consent ;  his  organization  does  in' 
nowise  depend  upon  himself;  his  ideas1 
come  to  him  involuntarily  ;  his  habits 
are  in  the  power  of  those  who  cause 
him  to  contract  them ;  he  is  unceasingly 
modified  by  causes,  whether  visible  or 
concealed,  over  which  he  has  no  con- 
trol, which  necessarily  regulate  his 
mode  of  existence,  give  the  hue  to  his 
way  of  thinking,  and  determine  his 
manner  of  acting.  He  is  good  or  bad, 
happy  or  miserable,  wise  or  foolish, 
reasonable  or  irrational,  without  his 
will  being  for  any  thing  in  these  various 
states.  Nevertheless,  in  despite  of  the 
shackles  by  Avhich  he  is  bound,  it  is 
pretended  he  is  a  free  agent,  or  that 
independent  of  the  causes  by  which  he 
is  moved,  he  determines  his  own  will, 
and  regulates  his  own  condition. 

However  slender  the  foundation  of 
this  opinion,  of  which  every  thing  ought 
to  point  out  to  him  the  errour,  it  is 
current  at  this  day  and  passes  for  an 
incontestable  truth  with  a  great  number 
of  people,  otherwise  extremely  enlight- 
ened ;  it  is  the  basis  of  religion,  which, 
supposing  relations  between  man  and 
the  unknown  being  she  has  placed  above 
nature,  has  been  incapable  of  imagining 


OF  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY. 


how  man  could  either  merit  reward  or 
deserve  punishment  from  this  being, 
if  he  was  not  a  free  agent.  Society 
has  been  believed  interested  in  this 
system ;  because  an  idea  has  gone 
abroad,  that  if  all  the  actions  of  man 
were  to  be  contemplated  as  necessary, 
the  right  of  punishing  those  who  injure 
their  associates  would  no  longer  exist. 
At  length  human  vanity  accommodated 
itself  to  a  hypothesis  which,  unques- 
tionably, appears  to  distinguish  man 
from  all  other  physical  beings,  by 
assigning  to  him  the  special  privilege 
of  a  total  independence  of  all  other 
causes,  but  of  which  a  very  little  reflec- 
tion would  have  shown  him  the  impos- 
sibility. 

As  a  part  subordinate  to  the  great 
Whole,  man  is  obliged  to  experience  its 
influence.  To  be  a  free  agent,  it  were 
needful  that  each  individual  was  of 
greater  strength  than  the  entire  of 
nature ;  or  that  he  was  out  of  this 
nature,  who,  always  in  action  herself, 
obliges  all  the  beings  she  embrace?  to 
act,  and  to  concur  to  her  general  motion ; 
or,  as  it  has  been  said  elsewhere,  to 
conserve  her  active  existence  by  the 
motion  that  all  beings  produce  in  con- 
sequence of  their  particular  energies, 
submitted  to  fixed,  eternal,  and  immu- 
table laws.  In  order  that  man  might 
be  a  free  agent,  it  were  needful  that  all 
beings  should  lose  their  essences;  it 
would  be  equally  necessary  that  he 
himself  should  no  longer  enjoy  physical 
sensibility ;  that  he  should  neither  know 
good  nor  evil,  pleasure  nor  pain ;  but  if 
this  were  the  case,  from  that  moment  he 
would  no  longer  be  in  a  state  to  con- 
serve himself,  or  render  his  existence 
happy  ;  all  beings  would  become  in- 
different to  him;  he  would  no  longer 
have  any  choice  ;  he  would  cease  to 
know  what  he  ought  to  love,  what  it 
was  right  he  should  fear ;  he  would 
not  have  any  acquaintance  with  that 
which  he  should  seek  after,  or  with 
that  which  it  is  requisite  he  should 
avoid.  In  short,  man  would  be  an 
unnatural  being,  totally  incapable  of 
acting  in  the  manner  we  behold.  It  is 
the  actual  essence  of  man  to  tend  to 
his  well  being,  or  to  be  desirous  to 
conserve  his  existence ;  if  all  the  motion 
of  his  machine  spring  as  a  necessary 
consequence  from  this  primitive  im- 
pulse ;  if  pain  warn  him  of  that  which 

No.  III.— 12 


he  ought  to  avoid;  if  pleasure  announce 
to  him  that  which  he  should  desire ;  if 
it  be  in  his  essence  to  love  that  which 
either  excites  delight,  or  that  from 
which  he  expects  agreeable  sensations; 
to  hate  that  which  either  makes  him 
fear  contrary  impressions  or  that  which 
afflicts  him  with  uneasiness;  it  must 
necessarily  be  that  he  will  be  attracted 
by  that  which  he  deems  advantageous ; 
that  his  will  shall  be  determined  by 
those  objects  which  he  judges  useful; 
that  he  will  be  repelled  by  those  beings 
which  he  believes  prejudicial,  either  to 
his  habitual  or  to  his  transitory  mode 
of  existence.  It  is  only  by  the  aid  of 
experience  that  man  acquires  the  faculty 
of  understanding  what  he  ought  to  love 
or  to  fear.  Are  his  organs  sound  1  his 
experience  will  he  true ;  are  they  un- 
sound? it  will  be  false:  in  the  first 
instance  he  will  have  reason,  prudence, 
foresight ;  he  will  frequently  foresee 
very  remote  effects ;  he  will  know  that 
what  he  sometimes  contemplates  as  a 
good,  may  possibly  become  an  evil  by 
its  necessary  or  probable  consequences ; 
that  what  must  be  to  him  a  transient 
evil,  may  by  its  result  procure  him  a 
solid  and  durable  good.  It  is  thus 
experience  enables  him  to  foresee,  that 
the  amputation  of  a  limb  will  cause 
him  painful  sensation,  he  consequently 
is  obliged  to  fear  this  operation,  and  he 
endeavours  to  avoid  the  pain ;  but,  if 
experience  has  also  shown  him  that 
the  transitory  pain  this  amputation  will 
cause  him  may  be  the  means  of  saving 
his  life ;  the  preservation  of  his  exist- 
ence being  of  necessity  dear  to  him, 
he  is  obliged  to  submit  himself  to  the 
momentary  pain,  with  a  view  to  pro- 
curing a  permanent  good  by  which  it 
will  be  overbalanced. 

The  will,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said, 
is  a  modification  of  the  brain,  by  which 
it  is  disposed  to  action,  or  prepared  to 
give  play  to  the  organs.  This  will  is 
necessarily  determined  by  the  qualities, 
good  or  bad,  agreeable  or  painful,  of  the 
object  or  the  motive  that  acts  upon  his 
senses,  or  of  which  the  idea  remains 
with  him,  and  is  resuscitated  by  his 
memory.  In  consequence,  he  acts  ne- 
cessarily, his  action  is  the  result  of  the 
impulse  he  receives  either  from  the 
motive,  from  the  object,  or  from  the 
idea  which  has  modified  his  brain,  or 
disposed  his  will.  When  he  does  not 


90 


OF  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY. 


act  according  to  this  impulse,  it  is 
because  there  comes  some  new  cause, 
some  new  motive,  some  new  idea, 
which  modifies  his  brain  in  a  different 
manner,  gives  him  a  new  impulse, 
determines  his  will  in  another  way, 
by  which  the  action  of  the  former 
impulse  is  suspended:  thus,  the  sight 
of  an  agreeable  object,  or  its  idea, 
determines  his  will  to  set  him  in  action 
to  procure  it ;  but  if  a  new  object  or  a 
new  idea  more  powerfully  attracts  him, 
it  gives  a  new  direction  to  his  will, 
annihilates  the  effect  of  the  former, 
and  prevents  the  action  by  which  it 
was  to  be  procured.  This  is  the  mode 
in  which  reflection,  experience,  reason, 
necessarily  arrests  or  suspends  the  ac- 
tion of  man's  will :  without  this  he 
would  of  necessity  have  followed  the 
anterior  impulse  which  carried  him 
towards  a  then  desirable  object.  In 
all  this  he  always  acts  according  to 
necessary  laws,  from  which  he  has  no 
means  of  emancipating  himself. 

If  when  tormented  with  violent  thirst, 
he  figures  to  himself  in  idea,  or  really 
perceives  a  fountain,  whose  limpid 
streams  might  cool  his  feverish  want, 
is  he  sufficient  master  of  himself  to 
desire  or  not  to  desire  the  object  com- 
petent to  satisfy  so  lively  a  want?  It 
will  no  doubt  be  conceded,  that  it  is 
impossible  he  should  not  be  desirous 
to  satisfy  it ;  but  it  will  be  said — if  at 
this  moment  it  is  announced  to  him 
that  the  Avater  he  so  ardently  desires 
is  poisoned,  he  will,  notwithstanding 
his  vehement  thirst,  abstain  from  drink- 
ing it :  and  it  has,  therefore,  been  falsely 
concluded  that  he  is  a  free  agent.  The 
fact,  however,  is,  that  the  motive  in 
either  case  is  exactly  the  same :  his 
own  conservation.  The  same  necessity 
that  determined  him  to  drink  before  he 
knew  the  water  was  deleterious,  upon 
this  new  discovery  equally  determines 
him  not  to  drink;  the  desire  of  con- 
serving himself  either  annihilates  or 
suspends  the  former  impulse  ;  the 
second  motive  becomes  stronger  than 
the  preceding,  that  is,  the  fear  of  death, 
or  the  desire  of  preserving  himself, 
necessarily  prevails  over  the  painful 
sensation  caused  by  his  eagerness  to 
drink  :  but,  it  will  be  said,  if  the  thirst 
is  very  parching,  an  inconsiderate  man 
without  regarding  the  danger  will  risk 
swallowing  the  water.  Nothing  is 


gained  by  this  remark:  in  this  case, 
the  anterior  impulse  only  regains  the 
ascendency ;  he  is  persuaded  that  life 
may  possibly  be  longer  preserved,  or 
that  he  shall  derive  a  greater  good  by 
drinking  the  poisoned  water  than  by 
enduring  the  torment,  which,  to  his 
mind,  threatens  instant  dissolution : 
thus  the  first  becomes  the  strongest 
and  necessarily  urges  him  on  to  action. 
Nevertheless,  in  either  case,  whether 
he  partakes  of  the  water,  or  whether 
he  does  not,  the  two  actions  will  be 
equally  necessary ;  they  will  be  the 
effect  of  that  motive  which  finds  itself 
most  puissant ;  which  consequently  acts 
in  the  most  coercive  manner  upon  his 
will. 

This  example  will  serve  to  explain 
the  whole  phenomena  of  the  human 
will.  This  will,  or  rather  the  brain, 
finds  itself  in  the  same  situation  as  a 
bowl,  which,  although  it  has  received 
an  impulse  that  drives  it  forward  in  a 
straight  line,  is  deranged  in  its  course 
whenever  a  force  superior  to  the  first 
obliges  it  to  change  its  direction.  The 
man  who  drinks  the  poisoned  water 
appears  a  madman;  but  the  actions  of 
fools  are  as  necessary  as  those  of  the 
most  prudent  individuals.  The  motives 
that  determine  the  voluptuary  and  the 
debauchee  to  risk  their  health,  are  as 
powerful,  and  their  actions  are  as  neces- 
sary, as  those  which  decide  the  wise 
man  to  manage  his.  But,  it  will  be 
insisted,  the  debauchee  may  be  pre- 
vailed on  to  change  his  conduct :  this 
does  not  imply  that  he  is  a  free  agent ; 
but  that  motives  may  be  found  suffi- 
ciently powerful  to  annihilate  the  effect 
of  those  that  previously  acted  upon  him ; 
then  these  new  motives  determine  his 
will  to  the  new  mode  of  conduct  he 
may  adopt  as  necessarily  as  the  former 
diJ  to  the  old  mode. 

Man  is  said  to  deliberate,  when  the 
action  of  the  will  is  suspended ;  this 
happens  when  two  opposite  motives 
act  alternately  upon  him.  To  delibe- 
rate, is  to  hate  and  to  love  in  succession; 
it  is  to  be  alternately  attracted  and  re- 
pelled ;  it  is  to  be  moved,  sometimes 
by  one  motive,  sometimes  by  another. 
Man  only  deliberates  when  he  does 
not  distinctly  understand  the  quality 
of  the  objects  from  which  he  receives 
impulse,  or  when  experience  has  not 
sufficiently  apprised  him  of  the  effect?" 


OF  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY". 


more  or  less  remote,  which  his  actions 
will  produce.  He  would  take  the  air, 
but  the  weather  is  uncertain ;  he  delibe- 
rates in  consequence ;  he  weighs  the 
various  motives  that  urge  his  will  to  go 
out  or  to  stay  at  home  ;  he  is  at  length 
determined  by  that  motive  which  is 
most  probable ;  this  removes  his  inde- 
cision, which  necessarily  settles  his 
will,  either  to  remain  within  or  to  go 
abroad :  this  motive  is  always  either 
the  immediate  or  ultimate  advantage 
he  finds,  or  thinks  he  finds,  in  the  action 
to  which  he  is  persuaded. 

Man's  will  frequently  fluctuates  be- 
tween two  objects,  of  which  either  the 
presence  or  the  ideas  move  him  alter- 
nately :  he  waits  until  he  has  contem- 
plated the  objects,  or  the  ideas  they 
have  left  in  his  brain  which  solicit  him 
to  different  actions;  he  then  compares 
these  objects  or  ideas  ;  but  even  in  the 
time  of  deliberation,  during  the  com- 
parison, pending  these  alternatives  of 
love  and  hatred  which  succeed  each 
other,  sometimes  with  the  utmost  ra- 
pidity, he  is  not  a  free  agent  for  a  single 
instant ;  the  good  or  the  evil  which  he- 
believes  he  finds  successively  in  the 
objects,  are  the  necessary  motives  of 
these  momentary  wills;  of  the  rapid 
motion  of  desire  or  fear,  that  he  expe- 
riences as  long  as  his  uncertainty  con- 
tinues. From  this  it  will  be  obvious 
that  deliberation  is  necessary ;  that 
uncertainty  is  necessary ;  that  what- 
ever part  he  takes,  in  consequence  of 
this  deliberation,  it  will  always  neces- 
sarily be  that  which  he  has  judged, 
whether  well  or  ill,  is  most  probable  to 
turn  to  his  advantage. 

When  the  soul  is  assailed  by  two 
motives  that  act  alternately  upon  it, 
or  modify  it  successively,  it  deliberates; 
the  brain  is  in  a  sort  of  equilibrium, 
accompanied  with  perpetual  oscilla- 
tions, sometimes  towards  one  object, 
sometimes  towards  the  other,  until  the 
most  forcible  carries  the  point,  and 
thereby  extricates  it  from  this  state  of 
suspense,  in  which  consists  the  inde- 
cision of  his  will.  But  when  the  brain 
is  simultaneously  assailed  by  causes 
equally  strong  that  move  it  in  opposite 
directions,  agreeable  to  the  general  law 
of  all  bodies  when  they  are  struck 
equally  by  contrary  powers,  it  stops, 
it  is  in  nisu;  it  is  neither  capable  to 
will  nor  to  act ;  it  waits  until  one  of 


the  two  causes  has  obtained  sufficient 
force  to  overpower  the  other ;  to  deter- 
mine its  will;  to  attract  it  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  may  prevail  over  the 
efforts  of  the  other  cause. 

This  mechanism,  so  simple,  so  natu- 
ral, suffices  to  demonstrate  why  uncer- 
tainty is  painful,  and  why  suspense  is 
always  a  violent  state  for  man.  The 
brain,  an  organ  so  delicate  and  so 
mobile,  experiences  such  rapid  modi- 
fications that  it  is  fatigued  ;  or  when  it 
is  urged  in  contrary  directions,  by  causes 
equally  powerful,  it  suffers  a  kind  of 
compression,  that  prevents  the  activity 
which  is  suitable  to  the  preservation  of 
the  whole,  and  which  is  necessary  to 
procure  what  is  advantageous  to  its 
existence.  This  mechanism  will  also 
explain  the  irregularity,  the  indecision, 
the  inconstancy  of  man,  and  account 
for  that  conduct  which  frequently  ap- 
pears an  inexplicable  mystery,  and 
which  is,  indeed,  the  effect  of  the 
received  systems.  In  consulting  expe- 
rience, it  will  be  found  that  the  soul  is 
submitted  to  precisely  the  same  physi- 
cal laws  as  the  material  body.  If  the 
will  of  each  individual,  during  a  given 
time,  was  only  moved  by  a  single  cause 
or  passion,  nothing  would  be  more  easy 
than  to  foresee  his  actions;  but  his 
heart  is  frequently  assailed  by  contrary 
powers,  by  adverse  motives,  which 
either  act  on  him  simultaneously  or  in 
succession  ;  then  his  brain,  attracted  in 
opposite  directions,  is  either  fatigued, 
or  else  tormented  by  a  state  of  com- 
pression, which  deprives  it  of  activity. 
Sometimes  it  is  in  a  state  of  incom- 
modious inaction  ;  sometimes  it  is  the 
sport  of  the  alternate  shocks  it  under- 
goes. Such,  no  doubt,  is  the  state  in 
which  man  finds  himselt  when  a  lively 
passion  solicits  him  to  the  commission 
of  crime,  whilst  fear  points  out  to  him 
the  danger  by  which  it  is  attended  : 
such,  also,  is  the  condition  of  him  whom 
remorse,  by  the  continued  labour  of  his 
distracted  soul,  prevents  from  enjoying 
the  objects  he  has  criminally  obtained. 

If  the  powers  or  causes,  whether 
exterior  or  interior,  acting  on  the  mind 
of  man,  tend  towards  opposite  points, 
his  soul,  as  well  a?  all  other  bodies, 
will  take  a  mean  direction  between  the 
two ;  and  in  consequence  of  the  violence 
with  which  his  soul  is  urged,  his  con- 
dition becomes  sometimes  so  painful 


92 


OF  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY. 


that  his  existence  is  troublesome :  he 
has  no  longer  a  tendency  to  his  own 
peculiar  conservation ;  he  seeks  after 
death  as  a  sanctuary  against  himself, 
and  as  the  only  remedy  to  his  despair : 
it  is  thus  we  behold  men,  miserable 
and  discontented,  voluntarily  destroy 
themselves  whenever  life  becomes  in- 
supportable. Man  cannot  cherish  his 
existence  any  longer  than  life  holds  out 
charms  to  him:  when  he  is  wrought 
upon  by  painful  sensations,  or  drawn 
by  contrary  impulsions,  his  natural 
tendency  is  deranged ;  he  is  under  the 
necessity  to  follow  a  new  route ;  this 
conducts  him  to  his  end,  which  it  even 
displays  to  him  as  the  most  desirable 
good.  In  this  manner  may  be  explained 
the  conduct  of  those  melancholy  beings, 
whose  vicious  temperaments,  whose 
tortured  consciences,  whose  chagrin, 
whose  ennui  sometimes  determine  them 
to  renounce  life.* 

The  various  powers,  frequently  very 
complicated,  that  act  either  successively 
or  simultaneously  upon  the  brain  of  man, 
which  modify  him  so  diversely  in  the 
different  periods  of  his  existence,  are  the 
true  causes  of  that  obscurity  in  morals, 
of  that  difficulty  which  is  found,  when 
it  is  desired  to  unravel  the  concealed 
springs  of  his  enigmatical  conduct.  The 
heart  of  man  is  a  labyrinth,  only  because 
it  very  rarely  happens  that  we  possess 
the  necessary  gift  of  judging  it ;  from 
whence  it  will  appear,  that  his  circum- 
stances, his  indecision,  his  conduct, 
whether  ridiculous  or  unexpected,  are 
the  necessary  consequences  of  the 
changes  operated  in  him ;  are  nothing 
but  the  effect  of  motives  that  succes- 
sively determine  his  will ;  which  are 
dependant  on  the  frequent  variations 
experienced  by  his  machine.  According 
to  these  variations  the  same  motives 
have  not  always  the  same  influence 
over  his  will ;  the  same  objects  no 
longer  enjoy  the  faculty  of  pleasing 
him  ;  his  temperament  has  changed, 
either  for  the  moment,  or  for  ever:  it 
follows  as  a  consequence,  that  his  taste, 
his  desires,  his  passions,  will  change ; 


*  See  Chapter  xiv. — Man  is  oftener  induced 
to  destroy  himself  by  mental  than  by  bodily 
pains.  A  thousand  things  may  cause  him  to 
forget  his  bodily  sufferings,  whilst  in  those  of 
the  mind  his  brain  is  whollv  absorbed ;  and 
this  is  the  reason  why  intellectual  pleasures 
are  superior  to  all  others. 


there  can  be  no  kind  of  uniformity  in 
his  conduct;  nor  any  certitude  in  the 
effects  to  be  expected. 

Choice  by  no  means  proves  the  free 
agency  of  man :  he  only  deliberates 
when  he  does  not  yet  know  which  to 
choose  of  the  many  objects  that  move 
him,  he  is  then  in  an  embarrassment, 
which  does  not  terminate  until  his  will 
is  decided  by  the  greater  advantage  he 
believes  he  shall  find  in  the  object  he 
chooses,  or  the  action  he  undertakes. 
From  whence  it  may  be  seen,  that 
choice  is  necessary,  because  he  Avould 
not  determine  for  an  object,  or  for  an 
action,  if  he  did  not  believe  that  he 
should  find  ink  some  direct  advantage. 
That  man  should  have  free  agency  it 
were  needful  that  he  should  be  able  to 
will  or  choose  without  motive,  or  that 
he  could  prevent  motives  coercing  his 
will.  Action  always  being  the  effect 
of  his  will  once  determined,  and  as  his 
will  cannot  be  determined  but  by  a 
motive  which  is  not  in  his  own  power, 
it  follows  that  he  is  never  the  master 
of  the  determination  of  his  own  pecu- 
liar will ;  that  consequently  he  never 
acts  as  a  free  agent.  It  has  been  be- 
lieved that  man  was  a  free  agent  be- 
cause he  had  a  will  with  the  power  of 
choosing;  but  attention  has  not  been 
paid  to  the  fact  that  even  his  will  is 
moved  by  causes  independent  of  him- 
self; is  owing  to  that  which  is  inherent 
in  his  own  organization,  or  which  be- 
longs to  the  nature  of  the  beings  acting 
on  him.t  Is  he  the  master  of  willing 
not  to  withdraw  his  hand  from  the  tire 
when  he  fears  it  will  be  burnt  ?  Or 
has  he  the  power  to  take  away  from 
fire  the  property  which  makes  him  fear 
it?  Is  he  the  master  of  not  choosing  a 
dish  of  meal,  which  he  knows  to  be 
agreeable,  or  analogous  to  his  palate ; 


t  Man  passes  a  great  portion  of  his  life 
without  even  willing.  His  will  depends  on 
the  motive  by  which  he  is  determined.  If  he 
were  to  render  an  exact  account  of  every  thing 
he  does  in  the  course  of  each  day — from  rising 
in  the  morning  to  lying  down  at  night — he 
would  find  that  not  one  of  his  actions  have  been 
in  the  least  voluntary ;  that  they  have  been 
mechanical,  habitual,  determined  by  causes 
he  was  not  able  to  foresee ;  to  which  he  was 
either  obliged  to  yield,  or  with  which  he  was 
allured  to  acquiesce :  he  would  discover,  that 
all  the  motives  of  his  labours,  of  his  amuse- 
ments, of  his  discourses,  of  his  thoughts,  have 
been  necessary;  that  they  have  evidently 
I  either  seduced  him  or  drawn  him  along. 


OF   MAN'S    FREE   AGENCY. 


93 


of  not  preferring  it  to  that  which  he 
Jknows  to  be  disagreeable  or  dangerous? 
It  is  always  according  to  his  sensa- 
tions, to  his  own  peculiar  experience, 
or  to  his  suppositions,  that  he  judges 
of  things,  either  well  or  ill;  but  what- 
ever may  be  his  judgment,  it  depends 
necessarily  on  his  mode  of  feeling, 
whether  habitual  or  accidental,  and  the 
qualities  he  finds  in  the  causes  that 
move  him,  which  exist  in  despite  of 
himself. 

All  the  causes  by  which  his  will  is 
actuated,  must  act  upon  him  in  a  man- 
ner sufficiently  marked  to  give  him 
some  sensation,  some  perception,  some 
idea ;  whether  complete  or  incomplete, 
true  or  false:  as  soon  as  his  will  is  de- 
termined, he  must  have  felt  either 
strongly  or  feebly  ;  if  this  was  not  the 
case  he  would  have  determined  with- 
out motive :  thus,  to  speak  correctly, 
there  are  no  causes  which  are  truly  in- 
different to  the  will :  however  faint  the 
impulse  he  receives,  whether  on  the 
part  of  the  objects  themselves,  or  on 
the  part  of  their  images  or  ideas,  as 
soon  as  his  will  acts,  the  impulse  has 
been  competent  to  determine  him.  In 
consequence  of  a  slight  or  feeble  im- 
pulse, the  will  is  weak ;  it  is  this  weak- 
ness in  his  will,  that  is  called  indiffer- 
ence. His  brain  with  difficulty  per- 
ceives the  sensation  it  has  received  ;  it 
consequently  acts  with  less  vigour, 
either  to  obtain  or  to  remove  the  object 
or  the  idea  that  has  modified  it.  If  the 
impulse  is  powerful,  the  will  is  strong, 
it  makes  him  act  vigorously  to  obtain 
or  to  remove  the  object  which  appears 
to  him  either  very  agreeable  or  very  in- 
commodious. 

It  has  been  believed  that  man  was  a 
free  agent,  because  it  has  been  imagin- 
ed that  his  soul  could  at  will  recall  ideas 
which  sometimes  suffice  to  check  his 
most  unruly  desires.*  Thus,  the  idea 
of  a  remote  evil,  frequently  prevents 
him  from  enjoying  a  present  and  actual 
good :  thus  remembrance,  which  is  an 
almost  insensible  or  slight  modification 
of  his  brain,  annihilates,  at  each  in- 
stant, the  real  objects  that  act  upon  his 
will.  But  he  is  not  master  of  recalling 
to  himself  his  ideas  at  pleasure;  their 
association  is  independent  of  him;  they 

*  St.  Augustine  says :  "  Non  enim  cuiquam 
in  potestate  est  quid  veniat  in  mentem." 


are  arranged  in  his  brain  in  despite  of 
him  and  without  his  own  knowledge, 
where  they  have  made  an  impression 
more  or  less  profound  ;  his  memory  it- 
self depends  upon  his  organization ;  its 
fidelity  depends  upon  the  habitual  or 
momentary  state  in  which  he  finds  him- 
self; when  his  will  is  vigorously  deter- 
mined to  some  object  or  idea  that 
excites  a  very  lively  passion  in  him, 
those  objects  or  ideas  that  would  be 
able  to  arrest  his  action,  no  longer  pre- 
sent themselves  to  his  mind  ;  in  those 
moments  his  eyes  are  shut  to  the 
dangers  that  menace  him;  of  which  the 
idea  ought  to  make  him  forbear;  he 
marches  forwards  headlong  towards 
the  object  by  whose  image  he  is  hur- 
ried on  ;  reflection  cannot  operate  upon 
him  in  any  way ;  he  sees  nothing  but 
the  object  of  his  desires ;  the  salutary 
ideas  which  might  be  able  to  arrest  his 
progress  disappear,  or  else  display 
themselves  either  too  faintly  or  too  late 
to  prevent  his  acting.  Such  is  the  case 
with  all  those  who,  blinded  by  some 
trong  passion,  are  not  in  a  condition  to 
recall  to  themselves  those  motives,  of 
which  the  idea  alone,  in  cooler  mo- 
ments, would  be  sufficient  to  deter  them 
from  proceeding  ;  the  disorder  in  which 
they  are,  prevents  their  judging  sound- 
ly ;  renders  them  incapable  of  foresee- 
ing the  consequence  of  their  actions ; 
precludes  them  from  applying  to  their 
experience ;  from  making  use  of  their 
reason ;  natural  operations  which  sup- 
pose a  justness  in  the  manner  of  asso- 
ciating their  ideas,  but  to  which  their 
brain  is  then  not  more  competent,  in, 
consequence  of  the  momentary  deliri- 
um it  suffers,  than  their  hand  is  to 
write  whilst  they  are  taking  violent 
exercise. 

Man's  mode  of  thinking  is  necessari- 
ly determined  by  his  manner  of  being; 
it  must  therefore  depend  on  his  natural 
organization,  and  the  modification  his 
system  receives  independently  of  his 
will.  From  this,  we  are  obliged  to 
onclude,  that  his  thoughts,  his  reflec- 
tions, his  manner  of  viewing  things,  of 
feeling,  of  judging,  of  combining  ideas, 
is  neither  voluntary  nor  free.  In  a 
word,  that  his  soul  is  neither  mistress 
of  the  motion  excited  in  it,  nor  of  rep- 
resenting to  itself,  when  wanted,  those 
images  or  ideas  that  are  capable  of 
counterbalancing  the  impulse  it  re- 


OF   MAN'S    FREE   AGENCY. 


ceives.  This  is  the  reason,  why  man, 
when  in  a  passion,  ceases  to  reason ;  at 
that  moment  reason  is  as  impossible  to 
be  heard,  as  it  is  during  an  ecstacy,  or 
in  a  fit  of  drunkenness.  The  wicked 
are  never  more  than  men  Avho  are 
either  drunk  or  mad  ;  if  they  reason,  it 
is  not  until  tranquillity  is  re-establish^ 
ed  in  their  machine  ;  then,  and  not  til| 
then,  the  tardy  ideas  that  present  them- 
selves to  their  mind  enable  them  to  see 
the  consequence  of  their  actions,  and 
give  birth  to  ideas  that  bring  on  them 
that  trouble,  which  is  designated  shame, 
regret,  remorse. 

The  errours  of  philosophers  on  the 
free  agency  of  man,  have  arisen  from 
their  regarding  his  will  as  theprimum 
mobile,  the  original  motive  of  his  ac- 
tions ;  for  want  of  recurring  back,  they 
have  not  perceived  the  multiplied,  the 
complicated  causes  which,  independ- 
ently of  him.  give  motion  to  the  will 
itself;  or  which  dispose  and  modify 
his  brain,  whilst  he  himself  is  purely 
passive  in  the  motion  he  receives.  Is 
he  the  master  of  desiring  or  not  desir- 
ing an  object  that  appears  desirable  to 
him?  Without  doubt  it  will  be  an- 
swered, no  :  but  he  is  the  master  of  re- 
sisting his  desire,  if  he  reflects  on  the 
consequences.  But,  I  ask,  is  he  capa- 
ble of  reflecting  on  these  consequences, 
when  his  soul  is  hurried  along  by  a 
very  lively  passion,  which  entirely  de- 
pends upon  his  natural  organization, 
and  the  causes  by  which  he  is  modi- 
fied 1  Is  it  in  his  power  to  add  to  these 
consequences  all  the  weight  necessary 
to  counterbalance  his  desire?  Is  he 
the  master  of  preventing  the  qualities 
which  render  an  object  desirable  from 
residing  in  it?  I  shall  be  told:  he 
ought  to  have  learned  to  resist  his  pas- 
sions ;  to  contract  a  habit  of  putting  a 
a  curb  on  his  desires.  I  agree  to  it 
Avithout  any  difficulty.  But  in  reply,  I 
again  ask,  is  his  nature  susceptible  of 
this  modification  ?  Does  his  boiling 
blood,  his  unruly  imagination,  the  ig- 
neous fluid  that  circulates  in  his  veins, 
permit  him  to  make,  enable  him  to  ap- 
ply true  experience  in  the  moment 
when  it  is  wanted?  And  even  when 
his  temperament  has  capacitated  him, 
has  his  education,  the  examples  set  be- 
fore him,  the  ideas  with  which  he  has 
been  inspired  in  early  life,  been  suitable 
to  make  him  contract  this  habit  of  re- 


pressing his  desires?  Have  not  all 
these  things  rather  contributed  to  in- 
duce him  to  seek  with  avidity,  to  make 
him  actually  desire  those  objects  which 
jiou  say  he  ought  to  resist. 
f*  The  ambitious  man  cries  out :  you 
will  have  me  resist  my  passion ;  but 
fhave  they  not  unceasingly  repeated  to 
me  that  rank,  honours';  power,  are  the 
most  desirable  advantages  in  life  ? 
Have  I  not  seen  my  fellow  citizens 
envy  them,  the  nobles  of  my  country 
sacrifice  every  thing  to  obtain  them  ? 
In  the  society  in  which  I  live,  am  I  not 
obliged  to  feel,  that  if  I  am  deprived 
of  these  advantages,  I  must  expect  to 
languish  in  contempt ;  to  cringe  under 
the  rod  of  oppression  ? 

The  miser  says :  you  forbid  me  to 
love  money,  to  seek  after  the  means  of 
acquiring  it :  alas  !  does  not  every  thing 
tell  me  that,  in  this  world,  money  is 
the  greatest  blessing  ;  that  it  is  amply 
sufficient  to  render  me  happy  ?  In  the 
country  I  inhabit,  do  I  not  see  all  my 
fellow  citizens  covetous  of  riches  ?  but 
do  I  not  also  witness  that  they  are  little 
scrupulous  in  the  means  of  obtaining 
wealth  ?  As  soon  as  they  are  enrich- 
ed by  the  means  which  you  censure, 
are  they  not  cherished,  considered  and 
respected  ?  By  what  authority,  then, 
do  you  defend  me  from  amassing  trea- 
sure ?  what  right  have  you  to  prevent 
my  using  means,  which,  although  you 
call  them  sordid  and  criminal,  I  see  ap- 
proved by  the  sovereign  ?  Will  you 
have  me  renounce  my  happiness  ? 

The  voluptuary  argues  :  you  pre 
tend  that  I  should  resist  my  desires ; 
but  was  I  the  maker  of  my  own  tem- 
perament, which  unceasingly  invites 
me  to  pleasure  ?  You  call  my  plea- 
sures disgraceful ;  but  in  the  country 
in  which  I  live,  do  I  not  witness  the 
most  dissipated  men  enjoying  the  most 
distinguished  rank  ?  Do  I  not  behold 
that  no  one  is  ashamed  of  adultery  but 
the  husband  it  has  outraged  ?  do  not  I 
see  men  making  trophies  of  their  de- 
baucheries, boasting  of  their  libertinism, 
rewarded  with  applanse  ? 

The  choleric  man  vociferates :  you 
advise  me  to  put  a  curb  on  my  passions, 
and  to  resist  the  desire  of  avenging 
myself:  but  can  I  conquer  my  nature  ? 
Can  I  alter  the  received  opinions  of  the 
world  ?  Shall  I  not  be  for  ever  dis- 
graced, infallibly  dishonoured  in  so- 


OF   MAN'S    FREE   AGENCY. 


95 


ciety,  if  I  do  not  wash  out  in  the  blood 
of  my  fellow  creature  the  injuries  I 
have  received? 

The  zealous  enthusiast  exclaims : 
you  recommend  me  mildness  ;  you  ad- 
vise me  to  be  tolerant;  to  be  indulgent 
to  the  opinions  of  my  fellow  men ;  but 
is  not  my  temperament  violent?  Do 
I  not  ardently  love  my  God  ?  Dp  they 
not  assure  me,  that  zeal  is  pleasing  to 
him ;  that  sanguinary  inhuman  perse- 
cutors have  been  his  friends  ?  As  I 
wish  to  render  myself  acceptable  in 
his  sight,  I  therefore  adopt  the  same 
means. 

(r-  In  short,  the  actions  of  man  are  never 
free  ;  they  are  always  the  necessary 
|  consequence  of  his  temperament,  of  the 
received  idea?,  and  of  the  notions, 
I  either  true  or  false,  which  he  has  form- 
j  ed  to  himself  of  happiness  ;  of  his  opin- 
ions, strengthened  by  example,  by  edu- 
cation, and  by  daily  experience.  So 
many  crimes  are  witnessed  on  the 
earth  only  because  every  thing  con- 
spires to  render  man  vicious  and  crimi- 
nal ;  the~religion  he  has  adopted,  his 
government,  his  education,  the  exam- 
ples set  before  him,  irresistibly  drive 
him  on  to  evil :  under  these  circum- 
stances, morality  preaches  virtue  to 
him  in  vain.  In  those  societies  where 
vice  is  esteemed,  where  crime  is  crown- 
ed, where  venality  is  constantly  re- 
compensed, where  the  most  dreadful 
disorders  are  punished  only  in  those 
who  are  too  weak  to  enjoy  the  privilege 
of  committing  them  with  impunity,  the 
practice  of  virtue  is  considered  nothing 
more  than  a  painful  sacrifice  of  happi- 
ness. Such  societies  chastise,  in  the 
lower  orders,  those  excesses  which  they 
respect  in  the  higher  ranks  ;  and  fre- 
quently have  the  injustice  to  condemn 
those  in  the  penalty  of  death,  whom 
public  prejudices,  maintained  by  con- 
stant example,  have  rendered  criminal. 

Man,  then,  is  not  a  free  agent  in  any- 
one instant  of  his  life  ;  he  is  necessari- 
ly guided  in  each  step  by  those  advan- 
tages, whether  real  or  fictitious,  that  he 
attaches  to  the  objects  by  which  his 
passions  are  roused:  these  passions 
themselves  are  necessary  in  a  being 
who  unceasingly  tends  towards  his  own 
happiness  ;  their  energy  is  necessary, 
since  that  depends  on  his  tempera- 
ment ;  his  temperament  is  necessary, 
because  it  depends  on  the  physical  ele- 


ments which  enter  into  his  composi- 
tion ;  the  modification  of  this  tempera- 
ment is  necessary,  as  it  is  the  infalli- 
ble and  inevitable  consequence  of  the 
impulse  he  receives  from  the  incessant 
action  of  moral  and  physical  beings. 

In  despite  of  these  proofs  of  the  want 
of  free  agency  in  man,  so  clear  to  un- 
prejudiced minds,  it  will,  perhaps,  be 
insisted  upon  with  no  small  feeling  of 
triumph,  that  if  it  be  proposed  to  any 
one,  to  move  or  not  to  move  his  hand, 
an  action  in  the  number  of  those  called 
indifferent,  he  evidently  appears  to  be 
the  master  of  choosing ;  from  which  it 
is  concluded  that  evidence  has  been 
offered  of  his  free  agency.  The  reply 
is,  this  example  is  perfectly  simple ; 
man  in  performing  some  action  which 
he  is  resolved  on  doing,  does  not  by 
any  means  prove  his  free  agency  :  the 
very  desire  of  displaying  this  quality, 
excited  by  the  dispute,  becomes  a  ne- 
cessary motive,  which  decides  his  will 
either  for  the  one  or  the  other  of  these 
actions :  what  deludes  him  in  this  in- 
stance, or  that  which  persuades  him  he 
is  a  free  agent  at  this  moment,  is,  that 
he  does  not  discern  the  true  motive 
which  sets  him  in  action,  namely,  the 
desire  of  convincing  his  opponent:  if 
in  the  heat  of  the  dispute  he  insists  and 
asks,  "  Am  I  not  the  master  of  throwing 
myself  out  of  the  window  ?"  I  shall 
answer  him,  no ;  that  whilst  he  pre- 
serves his  reason  there  is  no  probability 
that  the  desire  of  proving  his  free 
agency,  will  become  a  motive  suffi- 
ciently powerful  to  make  him  sacrifice 
his  life  to  the  attempt:  if,  notwith- 
standing this,  to  prove  he  is  a  free 
agent,  he  should  actually  precipitate 
himself  from  the  window,  it  would  not 
be  a  sufficient  warranty  to  conclude 
he  acted  freely,  but  rather  that  it  was 
the  violence  of  his  temperament  which 
spurred  him  on  to  this  folly.  Madness 
is  a  state,  that  depends  upon  the  heat 
of  the  blood,  not  upon  the  will.  A 
fanatic  or  a  hero,  braves  death  as  ne- 
cessarily as  a  more  phlegmatic  man  or 
a  coward  flies  from  it.* 


*  There  is,  in  point  of  fact,  no  difference 
between  the  man  that  is  cast  out  of  the  win- 
dow by  another,  and  the  man  who  throws 
himself  out  of  it,  except  that  the  impulse  in 
the  first  instance  comes  immediately  from 
without,  whilst  that  which  determines  the 
fall  in  the  second  case,  springs  from  within 
his  own  peculiar  machine,  having  its  more  re- 


9G 


OF  MAX'S   FREE  AGENCY. 


It  i.s  said  that  free  agency  is  the  ab- 
sence of  those  obstacles  competent  to 
oppose  themselves  to  the  actions  of 
man.  or  to  the  exercise  of  his  faculties : 
it  is  pretended  that  he  is  a  free  agent 
whenever,  making  use  of  these  facul- 
ties, he  produces  the  effect  he  has  pro- 
posed to  himself.  In  reply  to  this  rea- 
soning, it  is  sufficient  to  consider  that 
it  in  nowise  depends  upon  himself  to 
place  or  remove  the  obstacles  that 
either  determine  or  resist  him ;  the 
motive  that  causes  his  action  is  no 
more  in  his  own  power  than  the  obsta- 
cle that  impedes  him,  whether  this  ob- 
stacle or  motive  be  within  his  own  ma- 
chine or  exterior  of  his  person :  he 
is  not  master  of  the  thought  presented 
to  his  mind,  which  determines  his  will ; 
this  thought  is  excited  by  some  cause 
independent  of  himself. 

To  be  undeceived  on  the  system  of 
his  free  agency,  man  has  simply  to  re- 
cur to  the  motive  by  which  his  will  is 
determined  ;  he  will  always  find  this 
motive  is  out  of  his  own  controul.  It 
is  said  :  that  in  consequence  of  an  idea 
to  which  the  mind  gives  birth,  man  acts 
freely  if  he  encounters  no  obstacle. 
But  the  question  is,  what  gives  birth  to 
this  idea  in  his  brain?  was  he  the 
master  either  to  prevent  it  from  pre- 
senting itself,  or  from  renewing  itself 
in  his  brain  ?  Does  not  this  idea  depend 
either  upon  objects  that  strike  him  ex- 
teriorly and  in  despite  of  himself,  or 
upon  causes,  that  without  his  know- 
ledge, act  within  himself  and  modify 
his  brain  ?  Can  he  prevent  his  eyes, 
cast  without  design  upon  any  object 
whatever,  from  giving  him  an  idea  of 
this  object,  and  from  moving  his  brain? 
He  is  not  more  master  of  the  obstacles ; 
they  are  the  necessary  effects  of  either 
interior  or  exterior  causes,  which  al- 

mote  cause  also  exterior.  When  Mutius 
Scaevola  held  his  hand  in  the  fire,  he  was  as 
much  acting  under  the  influence  of  necessity 
(caused  by  interior  motives')  that  urged  him 
to  this  strange  action,  as  if  his  arm  had  been 
held  by  strong  men :  pride,  despair,  the  desire 
of  braving  his  enemy,  a  wish  to  astonish  him, 
an  anxiety  to  intimidate  him,  &c.,  were  the 
invisible  chains  that  held  his  hand  bound  to 
the  fire.  The  love  of  glory,  enthusiasm  for 
their  country,  in  like  manner  caused  Codrus 
and  Decius  to  devote  themselves  for  their 
fellow-citizens.  The  Indian  Colanus  and  the 
philosopher  Peregrinus  were  equally  obliged 
to  burn  themselves,  by  desire  of  exciting  the 
astonishment  of  the  Grecian  assembly. 


ways  act  according  to  their  given  pro- 
perties. A  man  insults  a  coward,  this 
necessarily  irritates  him  against  his  in- 
sulter,  but  his  will  cannot  vanquish  the 
obstacle  that  cowardice  places  to  the 
object  of  his  desire,  because  his  natural 
conformation,  which  does  not  depend 
upon  himself,  prevents  his  having 
courage.  In  this  case,  the  coward  is 
insulted  in  despite  of  himself;  and 
against  his  will  is  obliged  patiently  to 
brook  the  insult  he  has  received. 

The  partisans  of  the  system  of  free 
agency  appear  ever  to  have  confound- 
ed constraint  with  necessity.  Man  be- 
lieves he  acts  as  a  free  agent,  every 
time  he  does  not  see  any  thing  that 
places  obstacles  to  his  actions  ;  he  does 
not  perceive  that  the  motive  which 
causes  him  to  will,  is  always  necessary 
and  independent  of  himself.  A  pris- 
oner loaded  with  chains  is  compelled 
to  remain  in  prison ;  but  he  is  not  a 
free  agent  in  the  desire  to  emancipate 
himself;  his  chains  prevent  him  from 
acting,  but  they  do  not  prevent  him 
from  willing ;  he  would  save  himself 
if  they  would  loose  his  fetters ;  but  he 
would  not  save  him,  elf  as  a  free  agent; 
fear  or  the  idea  of  punishment  would 
be  sufficient  motives  for  his  action. 

Man  may,  therefore,  cease  to  be 
restrained,  without,  for  that  reason, 
becoming  a  free  agent :  in  whatever 
manner  he  acts,  he  will  act  necessarily, 
according  to  motives  by  which  he  shall 
be  determined.  He  may  be  compared 
to  a  heavy  body  that  finds  itself  arrested 
in  its  descent  by  any  obstacle  whatever: 
take  away  this  obstacle,  it  will  gravi- 
tate or  continue  to  fall;  but  who  shall 
say  this  dense  body  is  free  to  fall  or 
not?  Is  not  its  descent  the  necessary 
effect  of  its  own  specific  gravity  ?  The 
virtuous  Socrates  submitted  to  the  laws 
of  his  country,  although  they  were 
unjust;  and  though  the  doors  of  his 
jail  were  left  open  to  him,  he  would 
not  save  himself;  but  in  this  he  did 
not  act  as  a  free  agent:  the  invisible 
chains  of  opinion,  the  secret  love  of 
decorum,  the  inward  respect  for  the 
laws,  even  when  they  were  iniquitous, 
the  fear  of  tarnishing  his  glory,  kept 
him  in  his  prison  ;  they  were  motives 
sufficiently  powerful  with  this  enthu- 
siast for  virtue,  to  induce  him  to  wait 
death  with  tranquillity ;  it  was  not  in 
his  power  to  save  himself,  because  he 


OF  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY. 


97 


could  find  no  potential  motive  to  bring 
him  to  depart,  even  for  an  instcnt,  from 
those  principles  to  which  his  mind  was 
accustomed. 

Man,  it  is  said,  frequently  acts  against 
his  inclination,  from  whence  it  is  falsely 
concluded  ha  is  a  free  agent;  but  when 
he  appears  to  act  contrary  to  his  inclina- 
tion, he  is  always  determined  to  it  by 
some  motive  sufficiently  efficacious  to 
vanquish  this  inclination.  A  sick  man, 
Avith  a  view  to  his  cure,  arrives  at 
conquering  his  repugnance  to  the  most 
disgusting  remedies :  the  fear  of  pain, 
or  the  dread  of  death,  then  becomes 
necessary  motives ;  consequently  this 
sick  man  cannot  be  said  to  act  freely. 

When  it  is  said,  that  man  is  not  a 
free  agent,  it  is  not  pretended  to  com- 
pare him  to  a  body  moved  by  a  simple 
impulsive  cause :  he  contains  within 
himself  causes  inherent  to  his  existence ; 
he  is  moved  by  an  interior  organ,  which 
has  its  own  peculiar  laws,  and  is  itself 
necessarily  determined  in  consequence 
of  ideas  formed  from  perceptions  result- 
ing from  sensations  which  it  receives 
from  exterior  objects.  As  the  mechanism 
of  these  sensations,  of  these  perceptions, 
and  the  manner  they  engrave  ideas  on 
the  brain  of  man,  are  not  known  to  him ; 
because  he  is  uuable  to  unravel  all  these 
motions ;  because  he  cannot  perceive 
the  chain  of  operations  in  his  soul,  or 
the  motive  principle  that  acts  within 
him,  he  supposes  himself  a  free  agent ; 
which,  literally  translated,  signifies, 
that  he  moves  himself  by  himself; 
that  he  determines  himself  without 
cause:  when  he  rather  ought  to  say, 
that  he  is  ignorant  how  or  for  why  he 
acts  in  the  manner  he  does.  It  is  true 
the  soul  enjoys  an  activity  peculiar  to 
itself:  but  it  is  equally  certain  that  this 
activity  would  never  be  displayed,  if 
some  motive  or  some  cause  did  not  put 
it  in  a  condition  to  exercise  itself:  at 
least  it  will  not  be  pretended  that  the 
soul  is  able  either  to  love  or  to  hate 
without  being  moved,  without  knowing 
the  objects,  without  having  some  idea 
of  their  qualities.  Gunpowder  has 
unquestionably  a  particular  activity, 
but  this  activity  will  never  display 
itself,  unless  fire  be  applied  to  it ;  this, 
however,  immediately  sets  it  in  motion. 

It  is  the  great  complication  of  motion 
in  man,  it  is  the  variety  of  his  action, 
it  is  the  multiplicity  of  causes  that  move 

No.  IV.— 13 


him,  whether  simultaneously  or  in  con- 
tinual succession,  that  persuades  him 
he  is  a  free  agent :  if  all  his  motions 
were  simple,  if  the  causes  that  move 
him  did  not  confound  themselves  with 
each  other,  if  they  were  distinct,  if  his 
machine  were  less  complicated,  he 
would  perceive  that  all  his  actions 
were  necessary,  because  he  would  be 
enabled  to  recur  instantly  to  the  cause 
that  made  him  act.  A  man  who  should 
be  always  obliged  to  go  towards  the 
west,  would  always  go  on  that  side ; 
but  he  would  feel  that,  in  so  going,  he 
was  not  a  free  agent :  if  he  had  another 
sense,  as  his  actions  or  his  motion, 
augmented  by  a  sixth,  would  be  still 
more  varied  and  much  more  compli- 
cated, he  would  believe  himself  still 
more  a  free  agent  than  he  does  with 
h's  five  senses. 

It  is,  then,  for  want  of  recurring  to 
the  causes  that  move  him ;  for  want  of 
being  able  to  analyze,  from  not  being 
competent  to  decompose  the  compli- 
cated motion  of  his  machine,  that  man 
believes  himself  a  free  agent:  it  is  only 
upon  his  own  ignorance  that  he  founds 
the  profound  yet  deceitful  notion  he 
has  of  his  free  agency  ;  that  he  builds 
those  opinions  which  he  brings  forward 
as  a  striking  proof  of  his  pretended 
freedom  of  action.  If,  for  a  short  time, 
each  man  was  willing  to  examine  his 
own  peculiar  actions,  search  out  their 
true  motives  to  discover  their  concatena- 
tion, he  would  remain  convinced  that 
me  sentiment  he  has  of  his  natural  free 
agency,  is  a  chimera  that  must  speedily 
be  destroyed  by  experience. 

Nevertheless  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  the  multiplicity  and  diversity  of  the 
causes  which  continually  act  upon  man, 
frequently  without  even  his  knowledge, 
render  it  impossible,  oral  least  extremely 
difficult  for  him  to  recur  to  the  true  prin- 
ciples of  his  own  peculiar  actions,  much 
less  the  actions  of  others :  they  frequent- 
ly depend  upon  causes  so  fugitive,  so 
remote  from  their  effects,  and  which, 
superficially  examined,  appear  to  have 
so  little  analogy,  so  slender  a  relation 
with  them,  that  it  requires  singular 
sagacity  to  bring  them  into  light.  This 
is  what  renders  the  study  of  the  moral 
man  a  task  of  such  difficulty ;  this  is 
the  reason  why  his  heart  is  an  abyss, 
of  which  it  is  frequently  impossible  for 
him  to  fathom  the  depth.  He  is  then 


OP   MAN'S   FREE   AGENCY. 


obliged  to  content  himself  with  a  know- 
ledge of  the  general  and  necessary  laws 
by  which  the  human  heart  is  regulated  : 
for  the  individuals  of  his  own  species 
these  laws  are  pretty  nearly  the  same ; 
they  vary  only  in  consequence  of  the 
organization  that  is  peculiar  to  each, 
and  of  the  modification  it  undergoes: 
this,  however,  cannot  be  rigorously  the 
same  in  any  two.  It  suffices  to  know, 
that  by  his  essence,  man  tends  to  con- 
serve himself,  and  to  render  his  exist" 
ence  happy :  this  granted,  whatever 
may  be  his  actions,  if  he  recur  back 
to  this  first  principle,  to  this  generalj 
this  necessary  tendency  of  his  will,  he 
never  can  be  deceived  with  regard  to 
his  motives.  Man,  without  doubt,  for 
want  of  cultivating  reason  and  expe- 
rience, frequently  deceives  himself  upon 
the  means  of  arriving  at  this  end ;  some- 
times the  means  he  employs  are  un- 
pleasant to  his  fellows,  because  they 
are  prejudicial  to  their  interests;  or 
else  those  of  which  he  avails  himself 
appear  irrational,  because  they  remove 
him  from  the  end  to  which  he  would 
approximate :  but  whatever  may  be 
these  mean*,  they  have  always  neces- 
sarily and  invariably  for  object  either 
an  existing  or  imaginary  happiness, 
directed  to  preserve  himself  in 'a  state 
analogous  to  his  mode  of  existence,  to 
his  manner  of  feeling,  to  his  way  of 
thinking,  whether  durable  or  transitory. 
It  is  from  having  mistaken  this  truth, 
that  the  greater  number  of  moral  philo-_ 
sophers  have  made  rather  the  romance^ 
than  the  history  of  the  human  heart ; 
they  have  attributed  the  actions  of  man 
to  fictitious  causes ;  at  least  they  have 
not  sought  out  the  necessary  motives 
of  his  conduct.  Politicians  and  legis- 
lators have  been  in  the  same  state  of 
ignorance,  or  else  impostors  have  found 
it  much  shorter  to  employ  imaginaiy 
motive-powers,  than  those  which  really 
have  existence :  they  have  rather  chosen 
to  make  him  tremble  under  incommo- 
dious phantoms,  than  guide  him  to  virtue 
by  the  direct  road  to  happiness,  notwith- 
standing the  conformity  of  the  latter 
with  the  natural  desires  of  his  heart. 

However  this  may  be,  man  either 
sees  or  believes  he  sees  much  more 
distinctly  the  necessary  relation  of 
effects  with  their  causes  in  natural 
philosophy  than  in  the  human  heart: 
at  least  he  sees  in  the  former  sensible 


causes  constantly  produce  sensible 
effects,  ever  the  same,  when  the  cir- 
cumstances are  alike.  After  this  he 
hesitates  not  to  look  upon  physical 
effects  as  necessary ;  whilst  he  refuses 
to  acknowledge  necessity  in  the  acts 
of  the  human  will :  these  he  has,  with- 
out any  just  foundation,  attributed  to  a 
motive-power  that  acts  independently 
by  its  own  peculiar  energy,  Avhich  is 
capable  of  modify  ing  itself  without  the 
concurrence  of  exterior  causes,  and 
which  is  distinguished  from  all  ma- 
terial or  physical  beings.  Agriculture 
is  founded  upon  the  assurance,  afforded 
by  experience,  that  the  earth,  cultivated 
and  sown  in  a  certain  manner,  when  it 
has  otherwise  the  requisite  qualities, 
will  furnish  grain,  fruit  and  flowers, 
either  necessary  for  subsistence  or 
pleasing  to  the  senses.  If  things  were 
considered  without  prejudice,  it  would 
be  perceived,  that  in  morals,  education, 
is  nothing  more  than  the  agriculture 
of  the  mind ;  that,  like  the  earth,  by 
reason  of  its  natural  disposition,  of  the 
culture  bestowed  upon  it,  of  the  seeds 
with  which  it  is  sown,  of  the  seasons, 
more  or  less  favourable  that  conduct  it 
to  maturity,  we  may  be  assured  that 
the  soul  will  produce  either  virtue  or 
vice — moral  fruit,  that  will  be  either 
salubrious  for  man  or  baneful  to  society. 
Morals  is  the  science  of  the  relations 
that  subsist  between  the  minds,  the 
wills,  and  the  actions  of  men,  in  the 
same  manner  that  geometry  is  the 
science  of  the  relations  that  are  found 
between  bodies.  Morals  would  be  a 
chimera  and  would  have  no  certain 
principles,  if  it  was  not  founded  upon 
the  knowledge  of  the  motives  which 
must  necessarily  have  an  influence 
upon  the  human  will,  and  which  must 
necessarily  determine  the  actions  of 
human  beings. 

If,  in  the  moral  as  well  as  in  the 
physical  world,  a  cause,  of  which  the 
action  is  not  interrupted,  be  necessarily 
followed  by  a  given  effect,  it  flows 
consecutively  that  a  reasonable  educa- 
tion, grafted  upon  truth,  and  founded 
upon  wise  laws ;  that  honest  principles 
instilled  during  youth ;  virtuous  exam- 
ples continually  held  forth ;  esteem 
attached  solely  to  merit  and  good 
actions ;  contempt  and  shame  and 
chastisements  regularly  visiting  vice 
and  falsehood  and  crime,  are  causes 


OP  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY. 


that  would  necessarily  act  on  the  will 
of  man,  and  would  determine  the  greater 
.number  of  his  species  to  exhibit  virtue. 
But  if,  on  the  contrary,  religion,  politics, 
example,  public  opinion,  all  labour  to 
countenance  wickedness  and  to  train 
man  viciously ;  if  instead  of  fanning 
his  virtues,  they  stifle  good  principles ; 
if  instead  of  directing  his  studies  to  his 
advantage,  they  render  his  education 
cither  useless  or  unprofitable ;  if  this 
education  itself,  instead  of  grounding 
him  in  virtue,  only  inoculates  him  with 
vice ;  if,  instead  of  inculcating  reason 
it  imbues  him  with  prejudice ;  if,  instead 
of  making  him  enamoured  of  truth,  it 
furnishes  him  with  false  notions  and 
with  dangerous  opinions ;  if,  instead  of 
fostering  mildness  and  forbearance,  it 
kindles  in  his  breast  only  those  passions 
which  are  incommodious  to  himself  and 
hurtful  to  others ;  it  must  be  of  necessity 
that  the  will  of  the  greater  number  shalj. 
determine  them  to  evil.*  Here,  witli- 
out  doubt,  is  the  real  source  from  whence 
springs  that  universal  corruption  of 
which  moralists,  with  great  justice,  so 
loudly  complain,  without,  however, 
pointing  out  those  causes  of  the  evil, 
which  are  as  true  as  they  are  necessary. 
Instead  of  this,  they  search  for  it  in 
human  nature ;  say  it  is  corrupt  ;f  blame 

*  Many  authors  have  acknowledged  the 
importance  of  a  good  education,  and  that 
youth  was  the  season  to  feed  the  human  heart 
with  wholesome  diet ;  but  they  have  not  felt 
that  a  good  education  is  incompatible,  nay 
impossible,  with  the  superstition  of  man,  since 
this  commences  with  giving  his  mind  a  false 
bias ;  that  it  is  equally  inconsistent  with  arbi- 
trary government,  because  this  always  dreads, 
lest  he  should  become  enlightened,  and  is  ever 
sedulous  to  render  him  servile,  mean,  con- 
temptible, and  cringing ;  that  it  is  incongruous 
with  laws  that  are  too  frequently  bottomed  on 
injustice;  that  it  cannot  obtain  with  those 
received  customs  that  are  opposed  to  good 
sense ;  that  it  cannot  exist  whilst  public 
opinion  is  unfavourable  to  virtue ;  above  all, 
that  it  is  absurd  to  expect  it  from  incapable 
instructers,  from  masters  with  weak  minds, 
who  have  only  the  ability  to  infuse  into  their 
scholars  those  false  ideas  with  which  they  are 
themselves  infected. 

t  We  can  scarcely  conceive  a  more  baneful 
doctrine  than  that  which  inculcates  the  natu- 
ral corruption  of  man,  and  the  absolute  need 
of  the  grace  of  God  to  make  him  good.  Such 
a  doctrine  tends  necessarily  to  discourage  him; 
it  either  makes  him  sluggish  or  drives  him  to 
despair  whilst  waiting  for  this  grace.  What 
a  strange  system  of  morals  is  'that  of  theo- 
logians, who  attribute  all  moral  evil  to  an 


man  for  loving  himself;  stigmatize  him 
for  seeking  after  his  own  happiness ; 
insist  that  he  must  have  supernatural 
assistance  to  enable  him  to  become 
good ;  yet,  notwithstanding  the  sup- 
posed free  agency  of  man,  it  is  insisted 
that  nothing  less  than  the  author  of 
nature  himself,  is  necessary  to  destroy 
the  wicked  desires  of  his  heart :  but, 
alas !  this  powerful  agent  himself  is 
found  inefficacious  to  controul  those 
unhappy  propensities,  which,  under  the 
fatal  constitution  of  things,  the  most 
vigorous  motives,  as  has  been  before 
observed,  are  continually  infusing  into 
the  will  of  man.  He  is  indeed  inces- 
santly exhorted  to  resist  these  passions; 
to  stifle  and  root  them  out  of  his  heart: 
but  is  it  not  evident  they  are  necessary 
to  his  welfare,  and  inherent  in  his 
nature  1  Does  not  experience  prove 
them  to  be  useful  to  his  conservation, 
since  they  have  for  object,  only  to  avoid 
that  Avhich  may  be  injurious  and  to 
procure  that  which  may  be  advan- 
tageous? In  short,  is  it  not  easy  to  be 
seen,  that  these  passions  well  directed, 
that  is  to  say,  carried  towards  objects 
that  are  truly  useful,  that  are  really 
interesting  to  himself,  which  embrace 
the  happiness  of  others,  would  neces- 
sarily contribute  to  the  substantial  and 
permanent  well-being  of  society  ?  The 
passions  of  man  are  like  fire,  at  once 
necessary  to  the  wants  of  life,  and 
equally  capable  of  producing  the  most 
terrible  ravages.J 

Every  thing  becomes  an  impulse  to 
the  will :  a  single  word  frequently 
suffices  to  modify  a  man  for  the  whole 
course  of  his  life ;  to  decide  for  ever 
his  propensities;  an  infant,  who  has 
burned  his  finger  by  having  approached 
it  too  near  to  the  flame  of  a  lighted 
taper,  is  warned  that  he  ought  to  abstain 
from  indulging  a  similar  temptation  ; 
a  man  once  punished  and  despised  for 
having  committed  a  dishonest  action, 
is  not  often  tempted  to  continue  so 

original  sin,  and  all  moral  good  to  the  pardon 
of  it !  But  it  ought  certainly  not  to  excite 
surprise  that  a  moral  system,  founded  upon 
such  ridiculous  hypotheses,  is  of  no  efficacy. — 
See  Vol.  II.  chap.  viii. 

t  Theologians  themselves,  have  felt,  they 
have  acknowledged,  the  necessity  of  the  pas- 
sions :  many  of  the  fathers  of  the  church  have 
broached  this  doctrine ;  among  the  rest  Father 
Senault  has  written  a  book  expressly  on  the 
subject,  entitled,  Of  the  Use  of  the  Passions. 


100 


OF  MAN'S  FREE  AGENCY. 


unfavourable  a  course.  Under  what- 
ever point  of  view  man  is  considered, 
he  never  acts  but  after  the  impulse 
given  to  his  will,  whether  it  be  by  the 
will  of  others,  or  by  more  perceptible 
physical  causes.  The  particular  organi- 
zation decides  the  nature  of  the  impulse ; 
souls  act  upon  souls  that  are  analogous ; 
fiery  imaginations  act  with  facility  upon 
strong  passions,  and  upon  imaginations 
easy  to  be  intiamed ::  the  surprising  pro- 
gress of  enthusiasm,  the  hereditary  pro- 
pagation of  superstition,  the  transmis- 
sion of  religious  errours  from  race  to 
race,  the  excessive  ardour  Avith  \vhich 
man  seizes  on  the  marvellous,  are  effects 
as  necessary  as  those  which  result  from 
the  action  and  reaction  of  bodies. 

In  despite  of  the  gratuitous  ideas 
which  man  has  formed  to  himself  on 
his  pretended  free  agency  ;  in  defiance 
of  the  illusions  of  this  supposed  intimate 
sense,  which,  maugre  his  experience, 
persuades  him  that  he  is  master  of  his 
will ;  all  his  institutions  are  really 
founded  upon  necessity :  on  this,  as  on 
a  variety  of  other  occasions,  practice 
throws  aside  speculation.  Indeed,  if 
it  was  not  believed  that  certain  motives 
embraced  the  poAver  requisite  to  deter- 
mine the  Avill  of  man,  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  his  passions ;  to  direct  them 
towards  an  end,  to  modify  him,  of  what 
_use  Avould  be  the  faculty  of  speech? 
What  benefit  could  arise  from  educa- 
tion, from  legislation,  from  morals, 
even  from  religion  itself?  What  does 
education  achieve,  save  give  the  first 
impulse  to  the  human  \vill ;  make  man 
contract  habits  ;  oblige  him  to  persist 
in  them;  furnish  him  with  motives, 
whether  true  or  false,  to  act  after  a 
given  manner  ?  When  the  father  either 
menaces  his  son  with  punishment,  or 
promises  him  a  reAvard,  is  he  not  con- 
vinced these  things  will  act  upon  his 
will?  What  does  legislation  attempt 
except  it  be  to  present  to  the  citizens 
of  a  state  those  motives  Avhich  are 
supposed  necessary  to  determine  them 
to  perform  some  actions  that  are  con- 
sidered worthy ;  to  abstain  from  com- 
mitting others  that  are  looked  upon  as 
unworthy  ?  What  is  the  object  of 
morals,  if  it  be  not  to  show  man  that 
his  interest  exacts  he  should  suppress 
the  momentary  ebullition  of  his  pas- 
sions, with  a  vieAV  to  promote  a  more 
certain  happiness,  a  more  lasting  well- 


being,  than  can  possibly  result  from 
the  gratification  of  his  transitory  desires? 
Does  not  the  religion  of  all  countries 
suppose  the  human  race,  together  Avith 
the  entire  of  nature,  submitted  to  the 
irresistible  \vill  of  a  necessary  being 
who  regulates  their  condition  after  the 
eternal  laAvs  of  immutable  Avisdom  ? 
Is  not  this  God,  which  man  adores, 
the  absolute  master  of  their  destiny  ? 
Is  it  not  this  divine  being  Avho  chooses 
and  Avho  rejects  ?  The  anathemas 
fulminated  by  religion,  the  promises  it 
holds  forth,  are  they  not  founded  upon 
the  idea  of  the  effects  these  chimeras 
AArill  necessarily  produce  upon  ignorant 
and. timid  people?  Is  not  man  brought 
into  existence  by  this  kind  Divinity 
without  his  own  knowledge  ?  Is  he 
not  obliged  to  play  a  part  against  his 
Avill  ?  Does  not  either  his  happiness 
or  his  misery  depend  ,on  the  part  he 
mlays?* 

*  Education,  then,  is  only  necessity 
shown  to  children :  legislation,  is  ne- 
cessity shoAvn  to  the  members  of  the 
body  politic:  morals,  is  the  necessity  of 
the  relations  subsisting  between  men, 
shown  to  reasonable  beings :  in  short, 
man  grants  necessity  in  every  thing  for 
which  he  believes  he  has  certain  un- 
erring experience :  that  of  which  he 
does  not  comprehend  the  necessary 
connexion  of  causes  with  their  effects 
he  styles  probability :  he  \vould  not  act 
as  he  does,  if  he  Avas  not  convinced, 
or,  at  least,  if  he  did  not  presume  that 
certain  effects  Avill  necessarily  folloAv 
his  actions.  The  moralist  preaches 
reason,  because  he  believes  it  necessary 


*  Every  religion  is  evidently  founded  upon 
fatalism.  Among  the  Greeks  they  supposed 
men  were  punished  for  their  necessary  laulls — 
as  may  be  seen  in  Orestes,  in  OZdipus,  etc., 
who  only  committed  crimes  predicted  by  the 
oracles.  Christians  have  made  vain  efforts 
to  justify  God  Almighty  in  throwing  the  faults 
of  men  on  their  free  irill,  which  is  opposed  to 
Predestination,  another  name  for  fatalism. 
However,  their  system  of  Grace  will  by  no 
means  obviate  the  difficulty,  for  God  gives 
grace  only  to  those  whom  he  pleases.  In  all 
countries  religion  has  no  other  foundation  than 
the  fatal  decrees  of  an  irresistible  being  who 
arbitrarily  decides  the  fate  of  his  creatures. 
All  theological  hypotheses  turn  upon  this 
point ;  and  yet  those  theologians  who  regard 
the  system  of  fatalism  as  false  or  dangerous, 
do  not  see  that  the  Fall  of  Angels,  Original 
Sin,  Predestination,  the  System  of  Grace,  the 
small  number  of  the  Elect,  etc.  incontestably 
prove  that  religion  is  a  true  system  of  fatalism. 


OF   MAN'S   FREE   AGENCY. 


101 


to  man  :  the  philosopher  writes,  because 
he  believes  truth  must  sooner  or  later 
prevail  over  falsehood :  theologians  and 
tyrants  necessarily  hate  truth  and  de- 
spise reason,  because  they  believe  them 
prejudicial  to  their  interests  :  the  sove- 
reign, who  strives  to  terrify  crime  by 
the  severity  of  his  laws,  but  who,  never- 
theless, oftener  renders  it  useful  and 
even  necessary  to  his  purposes,  pre- 
sumes the  motives  he  employs  will  be 
sufficient  to  keep  his  subjects  within 
bounds.  All  reckon  equally  upon  the 
power  or  upon  the  necessity  of  the 
motives  they  make  use  of,  and  each 
individual  flatters  himself,  either  with 
or  without  reason,  that  these  motives 
will,  have  an  influence  on  the  conduct 
of  mankind.  The  education  of  man 
is  commonly  thus  defective  or  ineffi- 
cacious, only  because  it  is  regulated  by 
prejudice :  even  when  this  education 
is  good,  it  is  but  too  often  speedily 
counteracted  and  annihilated  by  every 
thing  that  takes  place  in  society.  Legis- 
lation and  politics  are  very  frequently 
iniquitous,  and  serve  no  better  purpose 
than  to  kindle  passions  in  the  bosom 
of  man,  which,  once  set  afloat,  they  are 
«no  longer  competent  to  restrain.  Thel 
P£reat  art  of  the  moralist  should  be  to 
point  out  to  man  and  to  those  who  are 
intrusted  with  the  office  of  regulating 
his  will,  that  their  interests  are  identi- 
fied ;  that  their  reciprocal  happiness 
depends  upon  the  harmony  of  their 
passions ;  that  the  safety,  the  power, 
the  duration  of  empires,  necessarily 
depend  on  the  good  sense  diffused 
among  the  individual  members ;  on 
the  truth  of  the  notions  inculcated  in 
the  mind  of  the  citizens  ;  on  the  moral 
goodness  that  is  sown  in  their  hearts ; 
on  the  virtues  that  are  cultivated  inj 
their  breasts.  Religion  should  not  be 
admissible  unless  it  truly  fortified  and 
strengthened  these  motives,  and  unless 
it  were  possible  for  falsehood  to  lend 
real  assistance  to  truth.  But  in  the 
miserable  state  into  which  errour  has 
plunged  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
human  species,  man,  for  the  most  part, 
is  obliged  to  be  wicked  or  to  injure  his 
fellow  creature ;  the  strongest  motives 
invite  him  to  the  commission  of  evil. 
Religion  renders  him  a  useless  being; 
makes  him  an  abject  slave ;  causes  him 
to  tremble  under  its  terrours ;  or  else 
turns  him  into  a  furious  fanatic,  who 


is  at  once  cruel,  intolerant  and  inhuman : 
arbitrary  power  crushes  him  and  obliges 
him  to  become  cringing  and  vicious : 
law  visits  crime  with  punishment  only 
in  those  who  are  too  feeble  to  oppose 
its  course,  or  when  it  has  become 
incapable  of  restraining  the  violent 
excesses  to  which  a  bad  government 
gives  birth.  In  short,  education  neg- 
lected  and  despised,  depends  either 
upon  priests,  who  are  impostors,  or 
else  upon  parents  without  understand- 
ing and  devoid  of  morals,  who  impress 
on  the  ductile  mind  of  their  scholars 
those  vices  with  which  they  are  them- 
selves tormented,  and  who  transmit  to 
them  the  false  opinions  which  they 
have  an  interest  in  making  them  adopt. 

All  this  proves  the  necessity  of  recur- 
ring to  the  primitive  source  of  man's 
wanderings,  if  it  be  seriously  intended 
to  furnish  him  with  suitable  remedies. 
It  is  useless  to  dream  of  correcting  his 
mistakes,  until  the  true  causes  that 
move  his  will  are  unravelled,  or  until 
more  real,  more  beneficial,  more  certain 
motives,  are  substituted  for  those  which 
are  found  so  inefficacious  and  so  danger- 
ous both  to  society  and  to  himself.  It  is 
for  those  who  guide  the  human  will 
who  regulate  the  condition  of  nations, 
to  seek  after  these  motives  with  which 
reason  will  readily  furnish  them ;  even 
a  good  book,  by  touching  the  heart  of 
a  great  prince,  may  become  a  very 
powerful  cause  that  shall  necessarily 
have  an  influence  over  the  conduct  of 
a  whole  people ;  that  shall  decide  upon 
the  felicity  of  a  portion  of  the  human 
race. 

From  all  that  has  been  advanced  in 
this  chapter,  it  results,  that  in  no  one 
moment  of  his  existence  is  man  a  free 
agent.  He  is  not  the  architect  of  his 
own  conformation,  which  he  holds  from 
nature ;  he  has  no  controul  over  his 
own  ideas,  or  over  the  modification  of 
his  brain ;  these  are  due  to  causes,  that, 
in  despite  of  him,  and  without  his  own 
knowledge,  unceasingly  act  upon  him ; 
he  is  not  the  master  of  not  loving  or 
coveting  that  which  he  finds  amiable 
or  desirable ;  he  is  not  capable  of 
refusing  to  deliberate,  when  he  is  un- 
certain of  the  effects  certain  objects 
will  produce  upon  him ;  he  cannot 
avoid  choosing  that  which  he  believes 
will  be  most  advantageous  to  him ;  iri 
the  moment  when  his  will  is  determined 


102 


OF   MAN'S    FREE   AGENCY. 


by  his  choice  he  is  not  competent  to 
act  otherwise  than  he  does.  In  what 
instance,  then,  is  he  the  master  of  his 
own  actions  ?  In  what  moment  is  he 
a  free  agent  ?* 

That  which  a  man  is  about  to  do, 
is  always  a  consequence  of  that  which 
he  has  been — of  that  which  he  is — of 
that  which  he  has  done  up  to  the 
moment  of  the  action:  his  total  and 
actual  existence,  considered  under  all 
its  possible  circumstances,  contains  the 
sum  of  all  the  motives  to  the  action  he 
is  about  to  commit ;  this  is  a  principle 
the  truth  of  which  no  thinking  being 
'  -will  be  able  to  refuse  accrediting :  his 
life  is  a  series  of  necessary  moments ; 
his  conduct,  whether  good  or  bad,  vir- 
tuous or  vicious,  useful  or  prejudicial, 
either  to  himself  or  to  others,  is  a  con- 
catenation of  action,  as  necessary  as 
all  the  moments  of  his  existence.  To 
live,  is  to  exist  in  a  necessary  mode 
during  the  points  of  that  duration  which 
succeed  each  other  necessarily :  to  will, 
is  to  acquiesce  or  not  in  remaining  such 
as  he  is :  to  be  free,  is  to  yield  to  the 
necessary  motives  he  carries  within 
himself. 

If  he  understood  the  play  of  his 
organs,  if  he  was  able  to  recall  to 
himself  all  the  impulsions  they  have 
received,  all  the  modifications  they 
have  undergone,  all  the  effects  they 
have  produced,  he  would  perceive  that 
all  his  actions  are  submitted  to  that 
fatality,  which  regulates  his  own  par- 
ticular system,  as  it  does  the  entire 
system  of  the  universe :  no  one  effect 
in  him,  any  more  than  in  nature,  pro- 
duces itself  by  chance ;  this,  as  has 
been  before  proved,  is  a  word  void  of 
sense.  All  that  passes  in  him;  all  that 
is  done  by  him  ;  as  well  as  all  that 
happens  in  nature,  or  that  is  attributed 

*  The  question  of  Free  Will  may  be  reduced 
;  to  this: — Liberty,  or  Free  Will,  cannot  be 
associated  with  any  known  functions  of  the 
soul ;  for  the  soul,  at  the  moment  in  which  it 
acts,  deliberates,  or  wills,  cannot  act,  delibe- 
rate, or  will  otherwise  than  it  does,  because 
a  thing  cannot  exist  and  not  exist  at  the  same 
time.  Now,  it  is  my  will,  such  as  it  is,  that 
makes  me  deliberate ;  my  deliberation,  that 
makes  me  choose;  my  choice  that  makes  me 
act ;  my  determination  that  makes  me  execute 
that  which  my  deliberation  has  made  me 
choose,  and  I  have  only  deliberated  because  I 
have  had  motives  which  rendered  it  impossible 
for  me  not  to  be  willing  to  deliberate.  Thus 
liberty  is  not  found  either  in  the  will,  in  the , 


to  her,  is  derived  from  necessary  causes, 
which  act  according  to  necessary  laws, 
and  which  produce  necessary  effects 
from  whence  necessarily  flow  others. 

Fatality,  is  the  eternal,  the  immu- 
table, the  necessary  order,  established 
in  nature ;  or  the  indispensable  con- 
nexion of  causes  that  act,  with  the 
effects  they  operate.  Conforming  to 
this  order,  heavy  bodies  fall ;  light 
bodies  rise ;  that  which  is  analogous 
in  matter  reciprocally  attracts ;  that 
which  is  heterogeneous  mutually  repels ; 
man  congregates  himself  in  society, 
modifies  each  his  fellow ;  becomes 
either  virtuous  or  wicked ;  either  con- 
tributes to  his  mutual  happiness,  or 
reciprocates  his  misery ;  either  loves 
his  neighbour,  or  halts  his  companion 
necessarily,  according  to  the  manner 
in  which  the  one  acts  upon  the  other. 
From  whence  it  may  be  seen,  that  the 
same  necessity  which  regulates  the 
physical,  also  regulates  the  moral  world, 
in  which  every  thing  is  in  consequence 
submitted  to  fatality.  Man,  in  running 
over,  frequently  without  his  own  know- 
ledge, often  in  despite  of  himself,  the 
route  which  nature  has  marked  out  for 
him,  resembles  a  swimmer  who  is 
obliged  to  follow  the  current  that  car' 
ries  him  along :  he  believes  himself 
a  free  agent,  because  he  sometimes 
consents,  sometimes  does  not  consent, 
to  glide  with  the  stream,  which,  not- 
withstanding, alwavs  hurries  him  for- 
ward ;  he  believes  himself  the  master 
of  his  condition,  because  he  is  obliged 
(0  use  his  arms  under  the  fear  of  sinking. 

Volentem  ducunt  fata,  nolentem  trahunt. 

Sencc. 

The  false  ideas  he  has  formed  to 
himself  upon  free  agency,  are  in  gene- 
ral thus  founded :  there  are  certain 

deliberation,  in  the  choice,  or  in  the  action. 
Theologians  must  not,  therefore,  connect 
liberty  with  these  operations  of  the  soul,  other- 
wise there  will  be  a  contradiction  of  ideas. 
If  the  soul  is  not  free  when  it  wills,  deliberates, 
chooses,  or  acts,  will  theologians  tell  us  when 
it  can  exercise  its  liberty? 

It  is  evident  that  the  system  of  liberty,  or 
free  will,  has  been  invented  to  exonerate  God 
from  the  evil  that  is  done  in  this  world.  But 
is  it  not  from  God  man  received  this  liberty  1 
Is  it  not  from  God  he  received  the  faculty  of 
choosins  evil  and  rejecting  the  good?  If  so, 
God  created  him  with  a  determination  to  sin, 
else  liberty  is  essential  to  man  and  independent 
of  God. — See  "  Treatise  of  Systems"  p.  124. 


OP  FATALISM. 


103 


events  which  he  judges  necessary; 
either  because  he  sees  that  they  are 
effects  constantly  and  invariably  linked 
to  certain  causes,  which  nothing  seems 
to  prevent ;  or  because  he  believes  he 
has  discovered  the  chain  of  causes  and 
effects  that  is  put  in  play  to  produce 
those  events:  whilst  he  contemplates 
as  contingent  other  events  of  whose 
causes  he  is  ignorant,  and  with  whose 
mode  of  acting  he  is  unacquainted: 
but  in  nature,  where  every  thing  is 
connected  by  one  common  bond,  there 
exists  no  effect  without  a  cause.  In 
the  moral  as  well  as  in  the  physical 
world,  every  thing  that  happens  is  a 
necessary  consequence  of  causes,  either 
visible  or  concealed,  which  are  of 
necessity  obliged  to  act  after  their  pe- 
culiar essences.  In  man,  free  agency] 
is  nothing  more  than  necessity  con-\ 
tained  within  himself. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

An  Examination  of  the  Opinion  which  pre- 
tends that  the  System  of  fatalism  is 
Dangerous. 

FOR  a  being  whose  essence  obliges 
him  to  have  a  constant  tendency  to  his 
own  conservation  and  to  render  him- 
self happy,  experience  is  indispensable : 
without  it  he  cannot  discover  truth, 
which  is  nothing  more,  as  has  been 
already  said,  than  a  knowledge  of  the 
constant  relations  which  subsist  be- 
tween man  and  those  objects  that  act 
upon  him ;  according  to  his  experience 
lie  denominates  those  that  contribute 
to  his  permanent  welfare,  useful  and 
salutary ;  those  that  procure  him  plea- 
sure, more  or  less  durable,  he  calls 
agreeable.  Truth  itself  becomes  .the 
object  of  his  desires,  only  when  he 
believes  it  is  useful ;  he  dreads  it  when- 
ever he  presumes  it  will  injure  him. 
But  has  truth  the  power  to  injure  him? 
Is  it  possible  that  evil  can  result  to 
man  from  a  correct  understanding  of 
the  relations  he  has  with  other  beings? 
Can  it  be  true  that  he  can  be  harmed 
by  becoming  acquainted  with  those 
things  of  which,  for  his  own  happiness, 
he  is  interested  in  having  a  knowledge? 
No !  unquestionably  not :  it  is  upon  its 
utility  that  truth  founds  its  worth  and 
its  rights :  sometimes  it  may  be  dis- 
agreeable to  individuals,  it  may  even 


appear  contrary  to  their  interests ;  but 
it  will  always  be  useful  to  the  whole 
human  species,  whose  interests  must 
for  ever  remain  distinct  from  those  of 
men  who,  duped  by  their  own  peculiar 
passions,  believe  their  advantage  con- 
sists in  plunging  others  into  errour.  - 

Utility,  then,  is  the  touchstone  of  thei 
systems,  the  opinions,  and  the  actions 
of  man  ;  it  is  the  standard  of  the  esteem 
and  the  love  he  owes  to  truth  itself: 
the  most  useful  truths  are  the  most 
estimable  :  those  truths  which  are  most 
interesting  for  his  species,  he  styles 
eminent ;  those,  of  which  the  utility 
limits  itself  to  the  amusement  of  some 
individuals  who  have  not  correspondent 
ideas,  similar  modes  of  feeling,  wants 
analogous  to  his  own,  he  either  disdains,  i 
or  else  calls  them  barren. 

It  is  according  to  this  standard  that 
the  principles  laid  down  in  this  work 
ought  to  be  judged.  Those  who  are 
acquainted  with  the  immense  chain  of 
mischief  produced  on  the  earth  by 
erroneous  systems  of  superstition,  will 
ackn  o  wledge  the  importance  of  opposing 
to  them  systems  more  accordant  with 
truth,  drawn  from  nature,  and  founded 
on  experience.  Those  who  are,  or  be- 
lieve they  are,  interested  in  maintaining 
the  established  errours,  will  contemplate 
with  horrour  the  truths  here  presented 
to  them :  in  short,  those  infatuated  mor- 
tals, who  only  feel  very  faintly  the  enor- 
mous load  of  misery  brought  upon  man- 
kind by  theological  prejudices,  will 
regard  all  our  principles  as  useless,  or, 
at  most,  as  steril  truths,  calculated  to 
amuse  the  idle  hours  of  a  few  specu- 
lators. 

No  astonishment,  therefore,  need  be 
excited  at  the  various  judgments  formed 
by  man :  his  interests  never  being  the 
same,  any  more  than  his  notions  of 
utility,  he  condemns  or  disdains  every 
thing  that  does  not  accord  with  his  own 
peculiar  ideas.  This  granted,  let  us 
examine  if,  in  the  eyes  of  the  disinte- 
rested man,  who  is  not  entangled  by 
prejudice,  who  is  sensible  to  the  happi- 
ness of  his  species,  the  doctrine  of 
fatalism  be  useful  or  dangerous  ?  Let 
us  see  if  it  be  a  barren  speculation,  that 
has  not  any  influence  upon  the  felicity 
of  the  human  race?  It  has  been  already 
shown  that  it  will  furnish  morals  with 
efficacious  arguments,  with  real  motives 
to  determine  the  will,  supply  politics 


104 


OF   FATALISM. 


with  the  true  lever  to  raise  the  proper 
activity  in  the  mind  of  man.  It  will 
also  be  seen  that  it  serves  to  explain 
in  a  simple  manner  the  mechanism  of 
man's  actions,  and  the  most  striking 
phenomena  of  the  human  heart :  on 
the  other  hand,  if  his  ideas  are  only 
the  result  of  unfruitful  speculations, 
they  cannot  interest  the  happiness  of 
the  human  species.  Whether  he  be- 
lieves himself  a  free  agent,  or  whether 
he  acknowledges  the  necessity  of  things, 
he  always  equally  follows  the  desires 
imprinted  on  his  soul.  A  rational  edu- 
cation, honest  habits,  t  wise  systems, 
equitable  laws,  rewards  uprightly  dis- 
tributed, punishments  justly  inflicted, 
will  render  man  virtuous  i  while  thorny 
speculations,  filled  with  difficulties,  can, 
at  most,  only  have  an  influence  over 
persons  accustomed  to  think. 

After  these  reflections  it  will  be  very 
easy  to  remove  the  difficulties  that  are 
unceasingly  opposed  to  the  system  of 
fatalism  ;  which  so  many  persons, 
blinded  by  their  religious  systems,  are 
desirous  to  have  considered  as  danger- 
ous ;  as  deserving  of  punishment ;  as 
calculated  to  disturb  public  tranquillity; 
as  tending  to  unchain  the  passions,  and 
to  confound  ideas  of  vice  and  of  Arirtue. 

The  opposers  of  necessity  say :  that 
if  all  the  actions  of  man  are  necessary, 
no  right  whatever  exists  to  punish  bad 
ones,  or  even  to  be  angry  with  those 
who  commit  them ;  that  nothing  ought 
to  be  imputed  to  them ;  that  the  laws 
would  be  unjust,  if  they  should  decree 
punishment  for  necessary  actions;  in 
short,  that  under  this  system,  man 
could  neither  have  merit  nor  demerit. 
In  reply  it  may  be  argued,  that,  to 
impute  an  action  to  any  one,  is  to 
attribute  that  action  to  him — to.  ac- 
knowledge him  for  the  author:  thus, 
when  even  an  action  was  supposed  to 
be  the  effect  of  an  agent,  and  that  agent 
necessity,  the  imputation  would  still 
lie :  the  merit  or  demerit  that  is  ascribed 
to  an  action  are  ideas  originating  in  the 
effects,  whether  favourable  or  perni- 
cious, that  result  to  those  who  expe- 
rience its  operation :  when,  therefore, 
it  should  be  conceded  that  the  agent 
was  necessity,  it  is  not  less  certain 
that  the  action  would  be  either  gocd 
or  bad ;  estimable  or  contemptible,  to 
those  who  must  feel  its  influence;  in 
short,  that  it  would  be  capable  of  either 


eliciting  their  love,  or  exciting  their 
anger.  Love  and  anger  are  modes  of 
existence  suitable  to  modify  beings  of 
the  human  species :  when,  therefore, 
man  irritates  himself  against  his  fellow, 
he  intends  to  excite  his  fear,  or  even  to 
punish  him.  Moreover,  his  anger  is 
necessary -f  it  is  the  result  of  his  nature 
and  of  his  temperament.  The  painful 
sensation  produced  by  a  stone  that  falls 
on  the  arm,  does  not  displease  the  less 
because  it  comes  from  a  cause  deprived 
of  will,  and  which  acts  by  the  necessity 
of  its  natore.  In,  contemplating  man 
as  acting  necessarily,  it  is  impossible 
to  avoid  distinguishing  that  mode  of 
action  or.  .being  which,  is  agreeable, 
which  elicits  approbation,  from  that 
which  is  afflicting,  which  irritates, 
which  nature  obliges  him  to  blame 
and  to  prevent.  From  this  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  system  of  fatalism  does 
not  in  any  manner  change  the  actual 
state  of  things,  and  is  by  no  means 
calculated  to  confound  man's  ideas  of 
virtue  and  vice.* 

Laws  are  made  with  a  view  to 
maintain  society,  and  to  prevent  man 
associated  from  injuring  his  neighbour; 
they  are  therefore  competent  to  punish 
those  who  disturb  its  harmony,  or  those 
who  commit  actions  that  are  injurious 
to  their  fellows ;  whether  these  asso- 
ciates may  be  the  agents  of  necessity, 
or  whether  they  are  free  agents,  it 
suffices  to  know  that  they  are  sus- 
ceptible of  modification,  and  are  there- 
fore submitted  to  the  operation  of  the 
law.  Penal  laws  are  those  motives 
which  experience  has  shown  capable 
of  restraining  or  of  annihilating  the 
impulse  passions  give  to  man's  will: 
from  whatever  necessary  cause  man 
may  derive  these  passions,  the  legis- 
lator proposes  to  arrest  their  effect,  and 
when  he  takes  suitable  means  he  is 
certain  of  success.  The  jurisconsult, 


*  Man's  nature  always  revolts  against  that 
which  opposes  it :  there  are  men  so  choleric, 
that  they  infuriate  themselves  even  against 
insensible  and  inanimate  objects ;  reflection 
on  their  own  impotence  to  modify  these  objects 
ought  to  conduct  them  back  to  reason.  Pa- 
rents are  frequently  very  much  to  be  blamed 
for  correcting  their  children  with  anger :  they 
should  be  contemplated  as  beings  who  are  not 
yet  modified,  or  who  have,  perhaps,  been  very 
badly  modified  by  themselves :  nothing  is  more 
common  in  life,  than  to  see  men  punish  faults 
of  which  thev  are  themselves  the  cause. 


OP  FATALISM. 


105 


in  decreeing  to  crime,  gibbets,  tortures, 
or  any  other  chastisement  'whatever, 
does  nothing  more  than  is  done  by  the 
architect,  who  in  building  a  house 
places  gutters  to  carry  off  the  rain,  and 
prevent  it  from  sapping  the  foundation. 

Whatever  may  be  .the  cause  that 
obliges  man  to  act,  society  possesses 
the  right  to  crush  the  effects :  as  much 
as  the  man  whose  land  would  be  ruined 
by  a  river,  has  to  restrain  its  waters  by 
a  bank,  or  even,  if  he  is  able,  to  turn  its 
course.  It  is  by  virtue  of  this  right, 
that  society  has  the  power  to  intimidate 
and  to  punish,  with  a  view  to  its  own 
conservation,  those  who  may  be  tempted 
to  injure  it;  or  those  who  commit  ac- 
tions which  are  acknowledged  really  to 
interrupt  its  repose,  to  be  inimical  to  its 
security,  or  repugnant  to  his  happiness. 

It  will  perhaps  be  argued,  that  society 
does  not  usually  punish  those  faults 
in  which  the  will  has  no  share ;  that 
it  punishes  the  will  alone ;  that  this 
it  is  which  decides  the  nature  of  the 
crime,  and  the  degree  of  its  atrocity  : 
that  if  this  will  be  not  free,  it  ought 
not  to  be  punished.  I  reply,  that  society" 
is  an  assemblage  of  sensible  beings, 
susceptible  of  reason,  who  desire  their 
own  welfare,  who  fear  evil,  and  seek 
after  good.  These  dispositions  enable 
their  will  to  be  so  modified  or  deter- 
mined, that  they  are  capable  of  holding 
such  a  conduct  as  will  conduce  to  the 
end  they  have  in  view.  Educational 
the  laws,  public  opinion,  example, 
habit,  fear,  are  the  causes  that  must 
modify  associated  man,  influence  his 
will,  regulate  his  passions,  restrain  the 
actions  of  him  who  is  capable  of  in- 
juring the  end  of  his  association,  and 
thereby  make  him  concur  to  the  gene^_ 
ral  happiness.  These  causes  are  of  a 
nature  to  make  impressions  on  every 
man  whose  organization  and  whose 
essence  place  him  in  a  capacity  to 
contract  the  habits,  the  modes  of  think- 
ing, and  the  manner  of  acting,  with 
which  society  is  willing  to  inspire  him. 
All  the  individuals  of  the  human  species 
are  susceptible  of  fear ;  from  whence  it 
flows  as  a  natural  consequence,  that 
the  fear  of  punishment,  or  the  privation 
of  the  happiness  he  desires,  are  motives 
that  must  necessarily  more  or  less  influ- 
ence his  will,  and  regulate  his  actions. 
If  the  man  is  to  be  found,  who  is  so 
badly  constituted  as  to  resist  or  to  be 

No.  IV.— 14 


insensible  to  those  motives  which 
operate  upon  all  his  fellows,  he  is  not 
fit  to  live  in  society  ;  he  would  contra- 
dict the  very  end  of  his  association ; 
he  would  be  its  enemy ;  he  would 
place  obstacles  to  its  natural  tendency ; 
his  rebellious  disposition,  his  unsociable 
will,  not  being  susceptible  of  that  modi- 
fication which  is  convenient  to  his  own 
true  interests  and  to  the  interests  of  his 
fellow  citizens,  these  would  unite  them- 
selves against  such  an  enemy  ;  and  the 
law  which  is  the  expression  of  the 
general  will,  would  visit  with  condign 
punishment  that  refractory  individual 
upon  whom  the  motives  presented  to 
him  by  society  had  not  the  effect  which 
it  had  been  induced  to  expect :  in  con- 
sequence such  an  unsociable  man  would 
be  chastised ;  he  would  be  rendered 
miserable ;  and  according  to  the  nature 
of  his  crime  he  would  be  excluded  from 
society,  as  a  being  but  little  calculated 
to  concur  in  its  views. 

If  society  has  the  right  to  conserve 
itself,  it  has  also  the  right  to  take  the 
means :  these  means  are  the  laws  which 
present  to  the  will  of  man  those  motives 
which  are  most  suitable  to  deter  him 
from  committing  injurious  actions.  If 
these  motives  fail  of  the  proper  effect, 
if  they  are  unable  to  influence  him, 
society,  for  its  own  peculiar  good,  is 
obliged  to  wrest  from  him  the  power 
of  doing  it  farther  injury.  From  what- 
ever source  his  actions  may  arise, 
whether  they  are  the  result  of  free 
agency,  or  whether  they  are  the  off- 
spring of  necessity,  society  coerces  him, 
if  after  having  furnished  him  with  mo- 
tives sufficiently  powerful  to  act  upon 
reasonable  beings,  it  perceives  that 
these  motives  have  not  been  compe- 
tent to  vanquish  his  depraved  nature. 
It  punishes  him  with  justice,  Avhen  the 
actions  from  which  it  dissuades  him 
are  truly  injurious  to  society ;  it  has  an 
unquestionable  right  to  punish,  when  it 
only  commands  or  defends  those  things 
that  are  conformable  to  the  end  pro- 
posed by  man  in  his  association.  But,"7 
on  the  other  hand,  the  law  has  not 
acquired  the  right  to  punish  him,  if  it 
has  failed  to  present  to  him  the  motives 
necessary  to  have  an  influence  over  his 
will ;  it  has  not  the  right  to  coerce  hi 
if  the  negligence  of  society  has  deprived 
nim  of  the  means  of  subsisting,  of 
exercising  his  talents,  of  exerting  his 


106 


OF  FATALISM. 


f-industry,  and  of  labouring  for  its  wel- 
'  fare.  It  is  unjust,  when  it  punishes 
those  to  whom  it  has  neither  given  an 
education,  nor  honest  principles ;  whom 
it  has  not  enabled  to  contract  habits 
necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  society : 
it  is  unjust,  when  it  punishes  them  for 
faults  which  the  wants  of  their  nature, 
or  the  constitution  of  society  has  ren- 
dered necessary  to  them:  it  is  unjust 
and  irrational,  whenever  it  chastises 
them  for  having  followed  those  pro- 
pensities which  example,  which  public 
opinion,  which  the  institutions,  which 
society  itself  conspires  to  give  them. 
In  short,  the  law  is  defective  when  it 
does  not  proportion  the  punishment  to 
the  real  evil  which  society  has  sustained. 
The  last  degree  of  injustice  and  folly  is, 
when  society  is  so  blinded  as  to  inflict 
punishment  on  those  citizens  who  have 
served  it  usefully. 

Thus  penal  laws  in  exhibiting  ter- 
rifying objects  to  man  who  must  he 
supposed  susceptible  of  fear,  present 
him  with  motives  calculated  to  have 
an  influence  over  his  will.  The  idea 
of  pain,  the  privation  of  liberty,  the  fear 
of  death,  are,  to  a  being  well  constituted 
and  in  the  full  enjoyment  of  his  faculties, 
rery  puissant  obstacles  that  strongly 
oppose  themselves  to  the  impulse  of  his 
unruly  desires :  when  these  do  not  co- 
erce his  will,  when  they  fail  to  arrest 
his  progress,  he  is  an  irrational  being, 
a  madman,  a  being  badly  organized, 
against  whom  society  has  the  right  to 
guaranty  itself  and  to  take  measures 
for  its  own  security.  Madness  is, 
•vithout  doubt,  an  involuntary  and  a 
necessary  state ;  nevertheless,  no  one 
feels  it  unjust  to  deprive  the  insane  of 
their  liberty,  although  their  actions  can 
only  be  imputed  to  the  derangement 
of  their  brain.  The  wicked  are  men 
whose  brain  is  either  constantly  or 
transitorily  disturbed ;  still  they  must 
be  punished  by  reason  of  the  evil  they 
commit ;  they  must  always  be  placed 
in  the  impossibility  of  injuring  society; 
if  no  hope  remains  of  bringing  them 
back  to  a  reasonable  conduct,  and  to 
adopt  a  mode  of  action  conformable  to 
the  great  end  of  association,  they  must 
be  for  ever  excluded  its  benefits. 

It  will  not  be  requisite  to  examine 
here  how  far  the  punishments,  which 
society  inflicts  upon  those  who  offend 
against  it,  may  be  reasonably  carried. 


Reason  should  seem  to  indicate,  that 
the  law  ought  to  show  to  the  necessary 
crimes  of  man  all  the  indulgence  that 
is  compatible  with  the  conservation  of 
society.  The  system  of  fatalism,  as 
we  have  seen,  does  not  leave  crime 
unpunished ;  but  it  is  at  least  calculated 
to  moderate  the  barbarity  with  which 
a  number  of  nations  punish  the  victims- 
to  their  anger.  This  cruelty  becomes 
still  more  absurd  when  experience  has 
shown  its  inutility :  the  habit  of  wit- 
nessing ferocious  punishments,  famil- 
iarizes criminals  with  the  idea.  If  it 
be  true  that  society  possesses  the  right 
of  taking  away  the  life  of  its  members ; 
if  it  be  really  a  fact  that  the  death  of  a 
criminal,  thenceforth  useless,  can  be 
advantageous  for  society,  (which  it  will 
be  necessary  to  examine,)  humanity 
at  least  exacts,  that  this  death  should 
not  be  accompanied  with  useless  tor- 
tures with  which  laws  too  frequently 
seem  to  delight  in  overwhelming  their 
victim.  This  cruelty  defeats  its  own. 
end,  as  it  only  serves  to  make  the 
culprit,  who  is  immolated  to  the  public 
vengeance,  suffer  without  any  advan- 
tage to  society :  it  moves  the  compassion 
of  the  spectator,  and  interests  him  in 
favour  of  the  miserable  offender  who 
groans  under  its  weight:  it  impresses 
nothing  upon  the  wicked ;  whilst  the 
sight  of  those  cruelties  destined  for 
himself  but  too  frequently  renders  him 
more  ferocious,  more  cruel,  and  more 
the  enemy  of  his  associates :  if  the 
example  of  death  were  less  frequent, 
even  without  being  accompanied  with 
tortures,  it  would  be  more  efficacious.* 


*  The  greater  number  of  criminals  only 
look  upou  death  as  a  bad  quarter  of  an  hour. 
A  thief  weeing  one  of  his  comrades  display  a 
want  of  firmness  under  the  punishment,  said 
to  him :  "  Is  not  this  what  I  have  often  told 
you,  that  in  our  business  we  have  one  evil 
more  than  the  rest  of  mankind?"  Robberies 
are  daily  committed  even  at  the  foot  of  the 
scaffolds  where  criminals  are  punished.  In 
those  nations,  where  the  penalty  of  death  is 
so  lightly  inflicted,  has  sufficient  attention 
been  paid  to  the  fact,  that  society  is  yearly 
deprived  of  a  great  number  of  individuals  who 
would  be  able  to  render  it  very  pseful  service, 
if  made  to  work,  and  thus  indemnify  the  com- 
munity for  the  injuries  they  have  committed  ? 
The  facility  with  which  the  lives  of  men  are 
taken  away,  proves  the  tyranny  and  incapa- 
city of  legislators :  they  find  it  a  much  shorter 
road  to  destroy  the  citizens,  than  to  seek  after 
the  means  to  render  them  better. 


OF   FATALISM. 


107 


What  shall  be  said  for  the  unjust 
cruelty  of  some  nations,  in  which  the 
law,  that  ought  to  have  for  its  object 
the  advantage  of  the  whole,  appears  to 
be  made  only  for  the  security  of  the 
most  powerful ;  in  which  punishments 
the  most  disproportionate  to  the  crime, 
unmercifully  take  away  the  lives  of 
men,  whom  the  most  urgent  necessity 
has  obliged  to  become  criminal?  It  is 
thus,  that  in  a  great  number  of  civilized 
nations,  the  life  of  the  citizen  is  placed 
in  the  same  scales  with  money ;  that 
the  unhappy  wretch,  who  is  perisning 
from  hunger  and  misery,  is  put  to  death 
for  having  taken  a  pitiful  portion  of  the 
superfluity  of  another  whom  he  beholds 
rolling  in  abundance  ?  It  is  this,  that 
in  many  otherwise  very  enlightened 
societies,  is  called  justice^  or  making 
the  punishment  commensurate  with  the 
crime. 

This  dreadful  iniquity  becomes  yet 
more  crying,  when  the  laws  decree  the 
most  cruel  tortures  for  crimes  to  which 
the  most  irrational  customs  give  birth; 
which  bad  institutions  multiply.  Man, 
as  it  cannot  be  too  frequently  repeated, 
is  so  prone  to  evil,  only  because  every 
thing  appears  to  urge  him  on  to  the 
commission,  by  too  frequently  showing 
him  vice  triumphant :  his  education  is 
void  in  most  states ;  he  receives  from 
society  no  other  principles,  save  those 
of  an  unintelligible  religion,  which 
make  but  a  feeble  barrier  against  his 
propensities :  in  vain  the  law  cries  out 
to  him :  "  abstain  from  the  goods  of  thy 
neighbour;"  his  wants,  more  powerful, 
loudly  declare  to  him  that  he  must  live 
at  the  expense  of  a  society  who  has 
done  nothing  for  him,  and  who  con- 
demns him  to  groan  in  misery  and  in 
indigence ;  frequently  deprived  of  the 
common  necessaries,  he  compensates 
himself  by  theft,  and  by  assassination ; 
he  becomes  a  plunderer  by  profession, 
a  murderer  by  trade,  and  seeks,  at  the 
risk  of  his  life,  to  satisfy  those  wants, 
whether  real  or  imaginary,  to  which 
every  thing  around  him  conspires  to 
give  birth.  Deprived  of  education,  he 
has  not  been  taught  to  restrain  the  fury 
of  his  temperament.  Without  ideas  of 
decency,  destitute  of  the  true  principles 
of  honour,  he  engages  in  criminal  pur- 
suits that  injure  his  country,  which  has 
been  to  him  nothing  more  than  a  step- 


mother. In  the  paroxysm  of  his  rage, 
he  only  sees  the  gibbet  that  awaits 
him;  his  unruly  desires  have  become 
too  potent ;  they  have  given  an  invete- 
racy to  his  habits  which  preclude  him 
from  changing  them ;  laziness  has  made 
him  torpid;  despair  has  rendered  him, 
blind ;  he  rushes  on  to  death ;  and 
society  punishes  him  rigorously  for 
those  fatal  and  necessary  dispositions, 
which  it  has  itself  engendered  in  his 
heart,  or  which  at  least  it  has  not  taken 
the  pains  seasonably  to  root  out  and  to 
oppose  by  motives  calculated  to  give 
him  honest  principles.  Thus  society 
frequently  punishes  those  propensities 
ofwhichitis  itself  the  author,  or  which 
its  negligence  has  suffered  to  spring  up 
in  the  mind  of  man  :  it  acts  like  those 
unjust  fathers,  who  chastise  their  chil- 
dren for  vices  which  they  have  them- 
selves made  them  contract. 

However  unjust  and  unreasonable  \ 
this  conduct  may  be,  or  appear  to  be, 
it  is  not  the  less  necessary :  society, 
such  as  it  is,  whatever  may  be  its  cor- 
ruption, whatever  vices  may  pervade 
its  institutions,  like  every  thing  else  in 
nature,  tends  to  subsist  and  to  conserve 
itself:  in  consequence  it  is  obliged  to 
punish  those  excesses  which  its  own 
vicious  constitution  has  produced :  in 
despite  of  its  peculiar  prejudices  and 
vices,  it  feels  cogently  that  its  own 
immediate  security  demands,  that  it 
should  destroy  the  conspiracies  of  those 
who  make  war  against  its  tranquillity : 
if  these,  hurried  on  by  necessary  pro- 
pensities, disturb  its  repose  and  injure 
its  interests,  this  following  the  natural 
law,  which  obliges  it  to  labour  to  its 
own  peculiar  conservation,  removes 
them  out  of  its  road,  and  punishes 
them  with  more  or  less  rigour,  accord- 
ing to  the  objects  to  which  it  attaches 
the  greatest  importance,  or  which  it 
supposes  best  suited  to  further  its  owa 
peculiar  welfare :  without  doubt  it  de- 
ceives itself  frequently,  but  it  deceives 
itself  necessarily,  for  want  of  the  know- 
ledge calculated  to  enlighten  it  with 
regard  to  its  true  interests,  or  for  want 
of  those,  who  regulate  its  movements, 
possessing  proper  vigilance,  suitable 
talents,  and  the  requisite  virtue.  From 
this  it  will  appear,  that  the  injustice 
of  a  society  badly  constituted,  and 
blinded  by  its  prejudices,  is  as  neew- 


108 


OF  FATALISM. 


sary  as  the  crimes  of  those  by  whom 
it  is  hostily  attacked  and  distracted.* 
The  body  politic,  when  in  a  state  of 
insanity,  cannot  act  more  consistently 
with  reason  than  one  of  its  members 
whose  brain  is  disturbed  by  madness. 

.It  will  still  be  said  that  these  max- 
ims, by  submitting  every  thing  to  ne- 
cessity, must  confound,  or  even  de- 
stroy, the  notions  man  forms  of  justice 
and  injustice,  of  good  and  evil,  of 
merit  and  demerit.  ,1  deny  it-:  although 
man,  in  every  thing  he  does,  acts  neces- 
sarily, his  actions  are  good,  just,  and 
meritorious,  every  time  they  tend  to  the 
real  utility  -of  his  fellows,  and  of  the 
society  of  which  he  makes  a  part :  they 
are,  of  necessity,  distinguished  from 
those  which  are  really  prejudicial  to 
the  welfare  of  his  associates.  Society 
is  just,  good,  and  worthy  our  reverence, 
when  it  procures  for  all  its  members 
their  physical  wants,  affords  them  pro- 
tectionj  secures  their  liberty,  and  puts 
them  in  possession  of  their  natural 
rights.  It  is  in  this  that  consists  all 
the  happiness  of  which  the  social  com- 
pact is  susceptible.  Society  is  unjust, 
and  unworthy  our  esteem,  w.hen  it  is 
partial  to  a  few,  and  cruel  to  the  great- 
er number:  it  is  then  that  it  multi- 
plies its  enemies,  and  obliges  them  to 
revenge  themselves  by  criminal  actions 
which  it  is  under  the  necessity  to  pun- 
ish. It  is  not  upon  the  caprices  of 
political  society  that  depend  the  true 
notions  of  justice  and  injustice,  the 
right  ideas  of  moral  good  and  evil,  a 
just  appreciation  of  merit  and  demerit ', 
it  is  upon  utility — upon  the  necessity 
of  things — which  always  forces  man 
to  feel  that  there  exists  a  mode  of  act- 
ing which  he  is  obliged  to  venerate  and 
approve,  either  in  his  fellows  or  in 
society  :  whilst  there  is  another  mode 
which  his  nature  makes  him  hate, 
which  his  feelings  compel  him  to  con- 
demn. It  is  upon  his  own  peculiar 
essence  that  man  founds  his  ideas  of 
pleasure  and  of  pain,  of  right  and  of 
wrong,  of  vice  and  of  virtue :  the  only 
difference  between  these  is,  that  pleas- 
ure and  pain  make  them  instantane- 


r  *  A  society  punishing  excesses  to  which  it 
has  itself  given  birth,  may  be  compared  to  a 
man  attacked  with  the  lousy  disorder,  who  is 
obliged  to  kill  the  insects,  although  it  is  his 
own  diseased  constitution  which  every  mo- 
irnent  produces  thorn. 


ously  felt  in  his  brain  ;  whilst  the  ad- 
vantages that  accrue  to  him  from  jus- 
tice and  virtue,  frequently  do  not  dis- 
play themselves  but  after  a  long  train 
of  reflections,  and  after  multiplied  ex- 
periences, which  many,  either  from  a 
defect  in  their  conformation  or  from  the 
peculiarity  of  the  circumstances  under 
which  they  are  placed,  are  prevented 
from  making,  or,  at  least,  from  making 
correctly. 

By  a  necessary  consequence  of  this 
truism,  the  system  of  fatalism,  although 
it  has  frequently  been  so  accused,  does 
not  tend  to  encourage  man  in  crime, 
and  to  make  remorse  vanish  from  his 
mind.  His  propensities  are  to  be  as- 
cribed to  his  nature ;  the  use  he  makes 
of  his  passions  depends  upon  his  habits, 
upon  his  opinions,  upon  the  ideas  he 
has  received  in  his  education,  and  upon 
the  examples  held  forth  by  the  society 
in  which  he  lives.  These  things  are 
what  necessarily  decide  his  conduct. 
Thus  when  his  temperament  renders 
him  susceptible  of  strong  passions,  he 
is  violent  in  his  desires,  whatever  may 
be  his  speculations. 

Remorse  is  the  painful  sentiment 
excited  in  him  by  grief  caused  either 
by  the  immediate  or  probable  future 
effect  of  his  passions :  if  these  effects 
were  always  useful  to  him,  he  would 
not  experience  remorse ;  but,  as  soon 
as  he  is  assured  that  his  actions  render 
him  hateful  or  contemptible ;  or  as  soon 
as  he  fears  he  shall  be  punished  in 
some  mode  or  other,  he  becomes  rest- 
less and  discontented  with  himself:  he 
reproaches  himself  with  his  own  con- 
duct; he  feels  ashamed;  he  fears  the 
judgment  of  those  beings  whose  affec- 
tion he  has  learned  to  esteem ;  in 
whose  good  will  he  finds  his  own  com- 
fort deeply  interested.  His  experience 
proves  to  him,  that  the  wicked  man  is 
odious  to  all  those  upon  whom  his  ac- 
tions have  any  influence :  if  these  ac- 
tions are  concealed  at  the  moment,  he 
knows  it  very  rarely  happens  they 
remain  so  forever.  The  smallest  re- 
flection convinces  him,  that  there  is  no 
wicked  man  who  is  not  ashamed  of 
his  own  conduct;  who  is  truly  con- 
tented with  himself;  who  does  not 
envy  the  condition  of  the  good  man ; 
who  is  not  obliged  to  acknowledge, 
that  he  has  paid  very  dearly  for  those 
advantages  he  is  never  able  to  enjoy 


OF  FATALISM. 


109 


without  making  the  most  bitter  re- 
proaches against  himself:  then  he  feels 
ashamed,  despises  himself,  hates  him- 
self, his  conscience  becomes  alarmed, 
remorse  follows  in  its  train.  To  be 
convinced  of  the  truth  of  this  principle, 
it  .is  only  requisite  to  cast  our  eyes  on 
the  extreme  precautions  that  tyrants 
and  villains,  who  are  otherwise  suffi- 
ciently powerful  not  to  dread  the  pun- 
ishment of  man,  take  to  prevent  expo- 
sure ;  to  what  lengths  they  push  their 
cruelties  against  some,  to  what  mean- 
ness they  stoop  to  others,  of  those  who 
are  able  to  hold  them  up  to  public 
scorn.  Have  they  not  then  a  con- 
sciousness of  their  own  iniquities  ?  Do 
they  not  know,  that  they  are  hateful 
and  contemptible  ?  Have  they  not  re- 
morse ?  Is  their  condition  happy  ?  Per- 
sons well  brought  up  acquire  these 
sentiments  in  their  education;  which 
are  either  strengthened  or  enfeebled 
by  public  opinion,  by  habit,  by  the  ex- 
amples set  before  them.  In  a  depraved 
society,  remorse,  either  does  not  exist, 
or  presently  disappears :  because  in  all 
his  actions,  it  is  ever  the  judgment  of 
his  fellow  man  that  man  is  obliged 
necessarily  to  regard.  He  never  feels 
either  shame  or  remorse  for  actions  he 
sees  approved,  that  are  practised  by  all 
the  worlo1.  Under  corrupt  governments, 
venal  souls,  avaricious  beings,  merce- 
nary individuals,  do  not  blush,  either 
at  meanness,  robbery,  or  rapine,  when 
it  is  authorized  by  example  :  in  licen- 
tious nations  no  one  blushes  at  adul- 
tery ;  in  superstitious  countries,  man 
does  not  blush  to  assassinate  his  fel- 
low for  his  opinions.  It  will  be  obvi- 
ous, therefore,  that  his  remorse,  as  well 
as  the  ideas,  whether  right  or  wrong, 
which  man  has  of  decency,  virtue, 
justice,  &c.  are  the  necessary  conse- 
quence of  his  temperament,  modified 
by  the  society  in  which  he  lives :  as- 
sassins and  thieves,  when  they  live 
only  among  themselves,  have  neither 
shame  nor  remorse. 

Thus,  I  repeat,  all  the  actions  of 
man,  are  necessary ;  those  which  are 
always  useful,  which  constantly  con- 
tribute to  the  real,  tend  to  the  perma- 
nent happiness  of  his  species,  are  call- 
ed virtues,  and  are  necessarily  pleas- 
ing to  all  who  experience  their  influ- 
ence— at  least,  if  their  passions  or  false 
opinions  do  not  oblige  them  to  judge 


in  that  manner  which  is  but  little  ac- 
cordant with  the  nature  of  things : 
each  man  acts,  each  individual  judges 
necessarily  according  to  his  own  pecu- 
liar mode  of  existence,  and  after  the 
ideas,  whether  true  or  false,  which  he 
has  formed  with  regard  to  his  happi-J 
ness.  There  are  necessary  actions, 
which  man  is  obliged  to  approve ; 
there  are  others,  that  in  despite  of  him- 
self, he  is  compelled  to  censure,  of 
which  the  idea  generates  shame,  when 
his  reflection  permits  him  to  contem- 
plate them  under  the  same  point  of 
view  that  they  are  regarded  by  his  as- 
sociates. The  virtuous  man  and  the 
wicked  act  from  motives  equally  ne- 
cessary; they  differ  simply  in  their  or- 
ganization, and  in  the  ideas  they  form 
to  themselves  of  happiness :  we  love 
the  one,  necessarily,  -we  detest  the 
other  from  the  same  necessity.  The 
laAV  of  his  nature  which  wills  that  a 
s'ensible  being  shall  constantly  labour 
to  preserve  himself,  has  not  left  to  man 
the  power  to  choose,  or  the  free  agency 
to  prefer  pain  to  pleasure,  vice  to  util- 
ity, crime  to  virtue.  It  is  then  the  es- 
sence of  man  himself,  that  obliges 
him  to  discriminate  those  actions  which 
are  advantageous  to  him,  from  those 
which  are  prejudicial. 

This  distinction  subsists  even  in  the 
most  corrupt  societies,  in  which  the 
ideas  of  virtue,  although  completely 
effaced  from  their  conduct,  remain  the 
same  in  their  mind.  Let  us  suppose  a 
man,  who  had  decidedly  determined 
for  villany,  who  should  say  to  himself: 
"  It  is  folly  to  be  virtuous  in  a  society 
that  is  depraved,  in  a  community  that 
is  debauched."  Let  us  suppose  also  that 
he  has  sufficient  address  and  good  for- 
tune to  escape  censure  or  punishment 
during  a  long  series  of  years ;  I  say,  that 
despite  of  all  these  circumstances,  ap- 
parently so  advantageous  for  himself, 
such  a  man  has  neither  been  happy  nor 
contented  with  his  own  conduct.  He 
has  been  in  continual  agonies:;  ever  at 
war  with  his  own  actions ;  in  a  state 
of  constant  agitation.  How  much  pain, 
how  much- anxiety,  has  he  not  endured 
in  this  perpetual  conflict  with  himself? 
how  many  precautions,  what  excessive 
labour,  what  endless  solicitude,  has  he 
not  been  compelled  to  employ  in  thU 
continued  struggle  ;  how  many  embar- 
rassments, how  many  cares,  has  he  not 


110 


OF  FATALISM. 


experienced  in  this  eternal  wrestling 
with  his  associates,  whose  penetration 
he  dreads  ?  Demand  of  him  what  he 
thinks  of  himself,  he  will  shrink  from 
the  question.  Approach  the  bedside 
of  this  villain  at  the  moment  he  is 
dying,  ask  him  if  he  would  be  willing 
to  recommence,  at  the  same  price,  a 
life  of  similar  agitation  1  If  he  is  in- 
genuous, he  will  avow  that  he  has  tast- 
ed neither  repose  rior  happiness ;  that 
each  crime  filled  him  with  inquietude; 
that  reflection  prevented  him  from 
sleeping ;  that  the  world  has  been  to 
him  only  one  continued  scene  of  alarm 
and  an  everlasting  anxiety  of  mind  ; 
that  to  live  peaceably  upon  bread  and 
water,  appears  to  him  to  be  a  much 
happier,  a  more  easy  condition,  than  to 
possess  riches,  credit,  reputation,  hon- 
ours, on  the  same  terms  that  he  has  him- 
self acquired  them.  If  this  villain,  mau- 
gre  all  his  success,  finds  his  condition 
so  deplorable,  what  must  be  thought  of 
the  feelings  of  those  who  have  neither 
the  same  resources,  nor  the  same  ad- 
vantages, to  succeed  in  their  criminal 
projects? 

Thus  the  system  of  necessity,  is  a 
truth  not  only  founded  upon  certain 
experience,  but,  again,  it  establishes 
morals  upon  an  immoveable  basis.  Far 
from  sapping  the  foundations  of  virtue, 
it  points  out  its  necessity;  it  clearly 
shows  the  invariable  sentiments  it  must 
excite — sentiments  so  necessary,  so 
strong,  that  all  the  prejudices  and  all 
the  vices  of  man's  institutions,  have 
never  been  able  entirely  to  eradicate 
them  from  his  mind.  When  he  mis- 
takes the  advantages  of  virtue,  it  ought 
to  be  ascribed  to  the  errours  that  are 
infused  into  him ;  to  the  irrationality 
of  his  institutions.  All  his  wander- 
ings are  the  fatal  and  necessary  conse- 
quences of  errour  and  of  prejudices 
which  have  identified  themselves  with 
his  existence.  Let  it  not  therefore  any 
longer  be  imputed  to  his  nature  that  he 
has  become  wicked,  but  to  those  bane- 
ful opinions  he  has  imbibed  with  his 
mother's  milk  which  have  rendered 
him  ambitious,  avaricious,  envious, 
haughtv,  arrogant,  debauched,  intole- 
rant, obstinate,  prejudiced,  incommodi- 
ous to  his  fellows,  and  mischievous  to 
himself.  1  It  is  education  that  carries 
into  his  system  the  germ  of  those  vices, 


which  necessarily  torment  him  during 
the  whole  course  of  his  life. 
-fa-Fatalism  is  reproached  with  dis- 
couraging man,  damping  the  ardour  of 
his  soul,  plunging  him  into  apathy,  and 
with  destroying  the  bonds  that  should 
connect  him  with  society.  Its  oppo- 
nents say:  "  If  every  thing  is  necessary, 
we  must  let  things  go  on,  and  not  be 
disturbed  at.  any  thing."  But  does  it 
depend  on  man  to  be  sensible  or  not? 
Is  he  master  of  feeling,  or  not  feeling 
pain  ?  If  nature  has  endowed  him 
with  a  humane  and  tender  soul,  is  it 
possible  he  should  not  interest  himself 
in  a  very  lively  manner  in  the  welfare 
of  beings  whom  he  knows  are  necessary 
to  his  own  peculiar  happiness  ?  His 
feelings  are  necessary ;  they  depend  on 
his  own  peculiar  nature,  cultivated  by 
education.  His  imagination,  prompt  to 
concern  itself  with  the  felicity  of  his 
race,  causes  his  heart  to  be  oppressed 
at  the  sight  of  those  evils  his  fellow 
creature  is  obliged  to  endure  :  makes 
his  soul  tremble  in  the  contemplation 
of  the  misery  arising  from  the  despotism 
that  crushes  him ;  from  the  superstition 
that  leads  him  astray ;  from  the  pas- 
sions that  distract  him ;  from  the  follies 
that  are  perpetually  ranking  him  in  a 
state  of  warfare  against  his  neighbour. 
Although  he  knows  that  death  is  the 
fatal  and  necessary  period  to  the  form 
of  all  beings,  his  soul  is  not  affected  in 
a  less  lively  manner  at  the  loss  of  a 
beloved  wife — at  the  demise  of  a  child 
calculated  to  console  his  old  age — at 
the  final  separation  from  an  esteemed 
friend,  who  had  become  dear  to  his 
heart.  Although  he  is  not  ignorant 
that  it  is  the  essence  of  fire  to  burn,  he 
does  not  believe  he  is  dispensed  from 
using  his  utmost  efforts  to  arrest  the 
progress  of  a  conflagration.  Although 
he  is  intimately  coiwinced  that  the' 
evils  to  which  he  is  a  witness  are  the- 
necessary  consequence  of  primitive' 
errours  with  which  his  fellow  citizens 
are  imbued,  yet  he  feels  he  ought  to- 
display  truth  to  them,  (if  nature  has 
given  him  the  necessary  courage,) 
under  the  conviction  that  if  they  listen 
to  it,  it  will  by  degrees  become  a  cer- 
tain remedy  for  their  sufferings — that 
it  will  produce  those  necessary  effects 
which  it  is  of  its  essence  to  operate. 
If  the  speculations  of  man  modify 


OP  FATALISM. 


Ill 


his  conduct,  if  they  change  his  tem- 
perament, he  ought  not  to  doubt  that 
the  system  of  necessity  would  have  the 
most  advantageous  influence  over  him : 
not  only  is  it  suitaule  to  calm  the  greater 
part  of  his  inquietude,  but  it  will  also 
contribute  to  inspire  him  with  a  useful 
submission,  a  rational  resignation  to  the 
decrees  of  a  destiny,  with  which  his 
too  great  sensioility  frequently  causes 
him  to  be  overwhelmed.  This  happy 
apathy  without  doubt  would  be  desirable 
to  those  whose  souls,  too  tender  to  brook 
the  inequalities  of  life,  frequently  render 
them  the  deplorable  sport  of  their  fate ; 
or  whose  organs,  too  weak  to  make 
resistance  to  the  buffetings  of  fortune, 
incessantly  expose  them  to  be  dashed 
in  pieces  under  the  rude  blows  of  ad- 
versity. 

But,  of  all  the  important  advantages 
the  human  race  would  be  enabled  to 
derive  from  the  doctrine  of  fatalism 
if  man  was  to  apply  it  to  his  conduct, 
none  would  be  of  greater  magnitude, 
none  of  more  happy  consequence,  none 
that  would  more  efficaciously  corrobo- 
rate his  happiness,  than  that  general 
indulgence,  that  universal  toleration, 
that  must  necessarily  spring  from  the 
opinion  that  all  is  necessary.  In  con- 
sequence of  the  adoption  of  this  prin- 
ciple, the  fatalist,  if  he  had  a  sensible 
soul,  would  commiserate  the  prejudices 
of  his  fellow  man,  would  lament  over 
his  wanderings,  would  seek  to  unde- 
ceive him,  without  ever  irritating  him- 
self against  his  weakness — without 
ever  insulting  his  misery.  Indeed, 
what  right  have  we  to  hate  or  despise 
man  for  his  opinions  ?  His  ignorance} 
his  prejudices,  his  imbecility,  his  vicesy 
his  passions,  his  weakness,  are  they; 
not  the  inevitable  consequence  oY  vicious 
institutions  ?  Is  he  not  sufficiently  pun-i 
ished  by  the  multitude  of  evils  that 
afflict  him  on  every  side?  Those  despots 
who  crush  him  with  an  iron  sceptre,  are 
they  not  continual  victims  to  their  own 
peculiar  restlessness,  and  eternal  slaves 
to  their  suspicious  ?  Is  there  one  wicked 
individual  who  enjoys  a  pure,  an  un- 
mixed, a  real  happiness  ?  Do  not  nations 
unceasingly  suffer  from  their  follies  ? 
Are  they  not  the  incessant  dupes  to 
their  prejudices?  Is  not  the  ignorance 
of  chiefs,  the  ill-will  they  bear  to  rea- 
son, the  hatred  they  have  for  truth, 
punished  by  the  imbecility  of  their  citi- 


zens, and  by  the  ruin  of  the  states  they 
govern?  In  short,  the  fatalist  would 
grieve  to  witness  necessity  each  moment 
exercising  its  severe  decrees  upon  mor- 
tals who  are  ignorant  of  its  power,  or 
who  feel  its  castigation,  without  being 
willing  to  acknowledge  the  hand  from 
whence  it  proceeds ;  he  will  perceive, 
that  ignorance  is  necessary,  that  credu- 
lity is  the  necessary  result  of  ignorance, 
that  slavery  and  bondage  are  necessary 
consequences  of  ignorant  credulity ; 
that  corruption  of  manners  springs 
necessarily  from  slavery  ;  that  the 
miseries  of  society  and  of  its  members, 
are  the  necessary  offspring  of  this  cor- 
ruption. 

The  fatalist,  in  consequence  of  these"* 
ideas,  will  neither  be  a  gloomy  mis- 
anthrope, nor  a  dangerous  citizen.  He 
will  pardon  in  his  brethren  those  wan- 
derings which  their  nature  vitiated  by 
a  thousand  causes,  has  rendered  neces- 
sary ;  he  will  offer  them  consolation ; 
he  will  endeavour  to  inspire  them  with 
courage  ;  he  will  be  sedulous  to  unde- 
ceive them  in  their  idle  notions ;  in 
their  chimerical  ideas ;  but  he  will 
never  show  them  that  rancorous  ani- 
mosity which  is  more  suitable  to  make 
them  revolt  from  his  doctrines  than  to 
attract  them  to  reason.  H.e__wilLjaot 
disturb  the  repose  of  society ;  he  will 
not  raise  the  people  to  insurrection 
against  the  sovereign  authority  ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  will  feel  that  the  miserable 
blindness  and  perverseness  of  so  many 
conductors  of  the  people,  are  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  that  flattery  admin- 
istered to  them  in  their  infancy ;  of  the 
depraved  malice  of  those  who  surround 
them,  and  who  wickedly  corrupt  them, 
tnat  they  may  profit  by  their  folly :  in 
short,  that  these  things  are  the  inevi-  . 
table  effect  of  that  profound  ignorance 
of  their  true  interest,  in  which  everyj 
thing  strives  to  keep  them. 

The  fatalist  has  no  right  to  be  vain 
of  his  peculiar  talents  or  of  his  virtues : 
he  knows  that  these  qualities  are  only 
the  consequence  of  his  natural  organiza- 
tion, modified  by  circumstances  that 
have  in  nowise  depended  upon  himself. 
He  will  neither  have  hatred  nor  feel 
contempt  for  those  whom  nature  and 
circumstances  have  not  favoured  in  a 
similar  manner.  It  is  the  fatalist  who 
ought  to  be  humble  and  modest  from 
principle :  is  he  not  obliged  to  acknow- 


112 


OP   FATALISM. 


ledge  that  he  possesses  nothing  that  he 
has  not  previously  received  ? 

In  fact,  every  thing  will  conduct  to 
indulgence  the  fatalist  whom  experience 
has  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  things. 
He  will  see  with  pain  that  it  is  the 
essence  of  a  society  badly  constituted, 
unwisely  governed,  enslaved  to  preju- 
dice, attached  to  unreasonable  customs, 
submitted  to  irrational  laws,  degraded 
under  despotism,  corrupted  by  luxury, 
inebriated  with  false  opinions,  to  be 
filled  with  trifling  members ;  to  be 
composed  of  vicious  citizens  ;  to  be 
made  up  of  cringing  slaves,  who  are 
proud  of  their  chains ;  of  ambitious 
men,  without  ideas  of  true  glory ;  of 
misers  and  prodigals ;  of  fanatics  and 
libertines !  Convinced  of  the  necessary 
connexion  of  things,  he  will  not  be 
surprised  to  see  that  the  supineness  of 
their  chiefs  carries  discouragement  into 
their  country  ;  or  that  the  influence  of 
their  governors  stirs  up  bloody  wars  by 
which  it  is  depopulated ;  causes  useless 
expenditures  that  empoverish  it ;  and 
that  all  these  excesses  united  is  the 
reason  why  so  many  nations  contain 
only  men  wanting  happiness,  who  are 
devoid  of  morals,  destitute  of  virtue. 
In  all  this,  he  will  contemplate  nothing 
more  than  the  necessary  action  and 
reaction  of  physics  upon  morals,  of 
morals  upon  physics.  In  short,  all 
who  acknowledge  fatality,  will  remain 
persuaded  that  a  nation  badly  governed 
is  a  soil  very  abundant  in  poisonous 
plants ;  that  these  have  such  a  plentiful 
growth  as  to  crowd  each  other  and 
choke  themselves.  It  is  in  a  country 
cultivated  by  the  hands  of  a  Lycurgus, 
that  he  will  witness  the  production  of 
intrepid  citizens,  of  noble-minded  indi- 
viduals, of  disinterested  men,  who  are 
strangers  to  irregular  pleasures.  In  a 
country  cultivated  by  a  Tiberius,  he 
will  find  nothing  but  villains,  with 
depraved  hearts,  men  with  mean  con- 
temptible souls,  despicable  informers, 
and  execrable  traitors.  It  is  the  soil, 
it  is  the  circumstances  in  which  man 
finds  himself  placed,  that  renders  him 
either  a  useful  object  or  a  prejudicial 
being:  the  wise  man  avoids  the  one, 
as  he  would  those  dangerous  reptiles 
whose  nature  it  is  to  sting  and  com- 
municate their  deadly  venom ;  he  at- 
taches himself  to  the  other,  esteems 
him,  loves  him,  as  he  does  those  deli- 


cious fruits,  with  whose  rich  maturity 
his  palate  is  pleasantly  gratified,  and 
with  whose  cooling  juices  he  finds 
himself  agreeably  refreshed  :  -he  sees 
the  wicked  without  anger ;  he  cherishes 
the  good  with  pleasure ;  he  delights  in 
the  bountiful ;  he  knows  full  well  that 
the  tree  which  is  languishing  without 
culture  in  the  arid,  sandy  desert ;  that 
is  stunted  for  want  of  attention ;  leafless 
for  want  of  moisture ;  that  has  grown 
crooked  from  neglect;  become  barren 
from  want  of  loam ;  would  perhaps 
have  expanded  far  and  wide  its  verdant 
boughs,  brought  forth  delectable  fruit, 
afforded  an  umbrageous  refreshing  shel- 
ter, if  its  seed  had  been  fortunately 
sown  in  a  more  fertile  soil,  or  if  it  had 
experienced  the  fostering  cares  of  a 
skilful  cultivator. 

Let  it  not  then  be  said,  that  it  is 
degrading  man  to  reduce  his  functions 
to  a  pure  mechanism  ;  that  it  is  shame- 
fully to  undervalue  him,  to  compare  him 
to  a  tree — to  an  abject  vegetation.  The 
philosopher  devoid  of  prejudice,  does 
not  understand  this  language  invented 
by  those  who  are  ignorant  of  what  con- 
stitutes the  true  dignity  of  man.  A  tree 
is  an  object  which,  in  its  station,  joins 
the  useful  with  the  agreeable ;  it  merits 
our  approbation  when  it  produces  sweet 
and  pleasant  fruit,  and  when  it  affords 
a  favourable  shade.  All  machines  are 
precious,  whenever  they  are  truly  useful, 
and  when  they  faithfully  perform  the 
functions  for  which  they  are  designed. 
Yes,  I  speak  it  with  courage,  the  honest 
man,  when  he  has  talents  and  possesses 
virtue,  is,  for  the  beings  of  his  species, 
a  tree  that  furnishes  them  with  delicious 
fruit,  and  affords  them  refreshing  shelter : 
the  honest  man  is  a  machine,  of  which 
the  springs  are  adapted  to  fulfil  its  func- 
tions in  a  manner  that  must  gratify  the 
expectation  of  all  his  fellows.  No,  I 
should  not  blush  to  be  a  machine  of  this 
sort ;  and  my  heart  would  leap  with  joy 
if  I  could  foresee  that  the  fruit  of  my 
reflections  would  one  day  be  useful  and 
consoling  to  my  fellow  man. 

Is  not  nature  herself  a  vast  machine, 
of  which  the  human  species  is  but  a 
very  feeble  spring?  I  see  nothing  con- 
temptible either  in  her  or  in  her  pro- 
ductions :  all  the  beings  who  come  out 
of  her  hands  are  good,  are  noble,  are 
sublime,  whenever  they  co-operate  to 
the  production  of  order ;  to  the  main- 


OF   FATALISM. 


113 


tenance  of  harmony  in  the  sphere  where 
they  must  act.  Oi  whatever  nature  the 
soul  may  be,  whether  mortal  or  immor- 
tal ;  whether  it  be  regarded  as  a  spirit, 
or  whether  it  be  looked  upon  as  a  por- 
tion of  the  body  ;  it  will  be  found  noble, 
great,  and  sublime,  in  a  Socrates,  in  an 
Aristides,  in  a  Cato :  it  will  be  thought 
abject,  it  will  be  viewed  as  despicable 
and  corrupt  in  a  Claudius,  in  a  Sejanus, 
in  a  Nero :  its  energies  will  be  admired 
in  a  Shakspeare,  in  a  Corneille,  in  a 
Newton,  in  a  Montesquieu:  its  base- 
ness will  be  lamented  when  we  behold 
mean  men,  who  flatter  tyranny,  or  who 
servilely  cringe  at  the  foot  of  super- 
stition. 

f~~  All  that  has  been  said  in  the  course 
of  this  work,  proves  clearly  that  every 
thing  is  necessary ;  that  every  thing  is 
always  in  order  relatively  to  nature, 
where  all  beings  do  nothing  more  than 
follow  the  laws  that  are  imposed  on 
their  respective  classes.  It  is  part  of 
her  plan,  that  certain  portions  of  the 
earth  shall  bring  forth  delicious  fruits, 
whilst  others  shall  only  furnish  bram- 
bles and  noxious  vegetables  :  she  has 
been  willing  that  some  societies  should 
produce  wise  men  and  great  heroes , 
that  others  should  only  give  birth  to 
contemptible  men,  without  energy,  and 
destitute  of  virtue.  Winds,  tempests, 
hurricanes,  volcanoes,  wars,  plagues, 
famine,  diseases,  death,  are  as  necessary 
to  her  eternal  march,  as  the  beneficent 
heat  of  the  sun,  the  serenity  of  the 
atmosphere,  the  gentle  showers  of 
spring,  plentiful  years,  peace,  health, 
harmony,  life :  vice  and  virtue,  dark- 
ness and  light,  ignorance  and  science, 
are  equally  necessary ;  the  one  are  not 
benefits,  the  other  are  not  evils,  except 
for  those  beings  whose  happiness  they 
influence,  by  either  favouring  or  de- 
ranging  their  peculiar  mode  of  existence. 
The  whole  cannot  be  miserable,  but  it 
may  contain  unhappy  individuals. 

Nature,  then,  distributes  with  the 
same  hand  that  which  is  called  order, 
and  that  which  is  called  disorder ; 
that  which  is  called  pleasure,  and  that 
which  is  called  pain;  in  short,  she 
diffuses,  by  the  necessity  of  her  exist- 
ence, good  and  evil,  in  the  world  we 
inhabit.  Let  not  man  therefore  either 
arraign  her  bounty,  or  tax  her  with 
malice ;  let  him  not  imagine  that  his 
vociferations  or  his  supplications,  can 

No.  IV.— 15 


ever  arrest  her  colossal  power,  always 
acting  after  immutable  laws.  Let  him 
submit  silently  to  his  condition ;  and 
when  he  suffecs,  let  him  not  seek  a 
remedy  by  recurring  to  chimeras  that 
his  own  distempered  imagination  has 
created ;  let  him  draw  from  the  stores 
of  nature  herself  the  remedies  which 
she  offers  for  the  evil  she  brings  upon, 
him :  if  she  send  him  diseases,  let 
him  search  in  her  bosom  for  those 
salutary  productions  to  which  she  has 
given  birth.  If  she  gives  him  errours, 
she  also  furnishes  him  with  experience 
and  truth  to  counteract  and  destroy 
their  fatal  effects.  If  she  permits  man 
to  groan  under  the  pressure  of  his  vices, 
beneath  the  load  of  his  follies,  she  also 
shows  him  in  virtue  a  sure  remedy  for 
his  infirmities :  if  the  evils  that  some 
societies  experience  are  necessary ,  when 
they  shall  have  become  too  incommo- 
dious, they  will  be  irresistibly  obliged  to 
search  for  those  remedies  which  nature 
will  always  point  out  to  them.  If  this 
nature  has  rendered  existence  insup- 
portable to  some  unfortunate  beings 
whom  she  may  appear  to  have  selected 
for  her  victims,  still  death  is  a  door 
that  will  surely  be  opened  to  them, 
and  will  deliver  them  from  their  mis- 
fortunes, although  they  may  be  deemed 
impossible  of  cure. 

Let  not  man,  then,  accuse  nature 
with  being  inexorable  to  him;  since 
there  does  not  exist  an  evil  for  which 
she  has  not  furnished  the  remedy  to 
those  who  have  the  courage  to  seek 
and  apply  it.  Nature  follows  general 
and  necessary  laws  in  all  her  opera- 
tions; physical  and  moral  evil  are  not 
to  be  ascribed  to  her  want  of  kindness, 
but  to  the  necessity  of  things.  Physical 
calamity  is  the  derangement  produced 
in  man's  organs  by  physical  causes 
which  he  sees  act :  moral  evil  is  the 
derangement  produced  in  him  by  physi- 
cal causes,  of  which  the  action  is  to 
him  a  secret.  These  causes  always 
terminate  by  producing  sensible  effects, 
which  are  capable  of  striking  his  senses; 
neither  the  thoughts  nor  the  will  of  man 
ever  show  themselves  but  by  the  marked 
effects  they  produce  either  in  himself 
or  upon  those  beings  whom  nature  has 
rendered  susceptible  of  feeling  their 
impulse.  He  suffers,  because  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  some  beings  to  derange 
the  economy  of  his  machine ;  he  enjoys, 


114 


OF   FATALISM. 


because  the  properties  of  some  beings 
are  analogous  to  his  own  mode  of 
existence  ;  he  is  born,  because  it  is  of 
the  nature  of  some  matter  to  combine 
itself  under  a  determinate  form ;  he 
lives,  he  acts,  he  thinks,  because  it  is 
of  the  essence  of  certain  combinations 
to  maintain  themselves  in  existence  for 
a  season ;  at  length  he  dies,  because  a 
necessary  law  prescribes  that  all  the 
combinations  which  are  formed,  shall 
either  be  destroyed  or  dissolve  them- 
selves. From  all  this  it  results,  that 
nature  is  impartial  to  all  its  productions; 
she  submits  man,  like  all  other  beings, 
to  those  eternal  laws  from  which  she 
has  not  been  able  to  exempt  herself: 
if  she  was  to  suspend  these  laws,  even 
for  an  instant,  from  that  moment  dis- 
order would  reign  in  her  system,  and 
her  harmony  would  be  disturbed. 

Those  who  wish  to  study  nature, 
must  take  experience  for  their  guide; 
this,  and  this  only,  can  enable  them  to 
dive  into  her  secrets,  and  to  unravel  by 
degrees  the  frequently  imperceptible 
woof  of  those  slender  causes  of  which 
she  avails  herself  to  operate  the  greatest 
phenomena :  by  the  aid  of  experience, 
man  often  discovers  in  her  new  proper- 
ties, perceives  modes  of  action  entirely 
unknown  to  the  ages  which  have  pre- 
ceded him ;  those  eifects  which  his 
grandfathers  contemplated  as  marvel- 
lous, which  they  regarded  as  super- 
natural efforts,  looked  upon  as  miracles, 
have  become  familiar  to  him  in  the 
present  day ;  are  at  this  moment  con- 
templated as  simple  and  natural  conse- 
quences of  which  he  comprehends  the 
mechanism  and  the  cause.  Man,  in 
fathoming  nature,  has  arrived  at  dis- 
covering the  true  causes  of  earthquakes, 
of  the  periodical  motion  of  the  sea,  of 
subterraneous  conflagrations,  of  me- 
teors, of  the  electrical  fluid,  the  whole 
of  which  were  considered  by  his  ances- 
tors, and  are  still  so  by  the  ignorant, 
as  indubitable  signs  of  heaven's  wrath. 
His  posterity,  in  following  up,  in  recti- 
fying the  experience  already  made,  will 
go  still  farther,  and  discover  effects  and 
causes  which  are  totally  veiled  from 
present  eyes.  The  united  efforts  of  the 
human  species,  Avill  one  day  perhaps 
penetrate  even  into  the  sanctuary  of 
nature,  and  throw  into  light  many  of 
those  mysteries,  which,  up  to  the  pre- 


sent time,  she  seems  to  hare  refused 
to  all  his  researches. 

In  contemplating  man  under  his  true 
aspect ;  in  quitting  authority  to  follow 
experience ;  in  laying  aside  errour  to 
consult  reason ;  m  submitting  every 
thing  to  physical  laws,  from  which  his 
imagination  has  vainly  exerted  its  ut- 
most power  to  withdraw  them ;  it  will 
be  found,  that  the  phenomena  of  the 
moral  world  follow  exactly  the  same 
general  rules  as  those  of  the  physical, 
and  that  the  greater  part  of  those  asto- 
nishing effects,  which  ignorance  aided 
by  his  prejudices,  makes  him  consider 
as  inexplicable  and  as  wonderful,  are 
natural  consequences  flowing  from  sim- 
ple causes.  He  will  find,  that  the  erup- 
tion of  a  volcano  and  the  birth  of  a 
Tamerlane  are  to  nature  the  same  thing  j 
in  recurring  to  the  primitive  causes  of 
those  striking  events  which  he  beholds- 
with  consternation,  of  those  terrible 
revolutions,  those  frightful  convulsions' 
that  distract  mankind,  lay  waste  the 
fairest  works  of  nature,  and  ravage- 
nations,  he  will  find  the  wills  that 
compassed  the  most  surprising  changes, 
that  operated  the  most  extensive  altera- 
tions in  the  state  of  things,  were  moved 
by  physical  causes,  whose  exility  made 
him  treat  them  as  contemptible,  and 
as  utterly  incapable  to  give  birth  to  the 
phenomena,  whose  magnitude  strikes 
him  with  awe  and  amazement. 

If  man  was  to  judge  of  causes  by 
their  effects,  there  would  be  no  small 
causes  in  the  universe.  In  a  nature 
where  every  thing  is  connected  ;  where 
every  thing  acts  and  reacts,  moves  and 
changes,  composes  and  decomposes, 
forms  and  destroys,  there  is  not  an 
atom  which  does  not  play  an  important 
and  necessary  part ;  there  is  not  an. 
imperceptible  particle,  however  minute, 
which,  placed  in  convenient  circum- 
stances, does  not  operate  the  most 
prodigious  effects.  If  man  was  in  a 
capacity  to  follow  the  eternal  chain, 
to  pursue  the  concatenated  links  that 
connect  with  their  causes  all  the  effects 
he  witnesses,  without  losing  sight  of 
any  one  of  its  rings,  if  he  could  unravel 
the  ends  of  those  insensible  threads 
that  give  impulse  to  the  thoughts, 
decision  to  the  will,  direction  to  the 
passions  of  those  men  who  are  called 
mighty,  according  to  their  actions ;  he 


OF  FATALISM. 


would  find  that  they  arc  true  atoms 
which  nature  employs  to  move  the 
moral  world ;  that  it  is  the  unexpected 
but  necessary  junction  of  these  indis- 
cernible particles  of  matter,  it  is  their 
aggregation,  their  combination,  their 
proportion,  their  fermentation,  which 
modifying  the  individual  by  degrees, 
in  despite  of  himself,  and  frequently 
without  his  own  knowledge,  make  him 
think,  will  and  act  in  a  determinate 
but  necessary  mode.  If  the  will  and 
the  actions  of  this  individual  have  an 
influence  over  a  great  number  of  other 
men,  here  is  the  moral  world  in  a  state 
of  the  greatest  combustion.  Too  much 
acrimony  in  the  bile  of  a  fanatic,  blood 
too  much  inflamed  in  the  heart  of  a 
conqueror,  a  painful  indigestion  in  the 
stomach  of  a  monarch,  a  whim  that 
passes  in  the  mind  of  a  woman,  are 
sometimes  causes  sufficient  to  bring  on 
war,  to  send  millions  of  men  to  the 
slaughter,  to  root  out  an  entire  people, 
to  overthrow  Avails,  to  reduce  cities  into 
ashes,  to  plunge  nations  into  slavery, 
to  put  a  whole  people  into  mourning, 
to  breed  famine  in  a  land,  to  engender 
pestilence,  to  propagate  calamity,  to 
extend  misery,  to  spread  desolation  far 
and  wide  upon  the  surface  of  our  globe, 
through  a  long  series  of  ages. 

The  dominant  passion  of  an  indi- 
vidual of  the  human  species,  when  it 
disposes  of  the  passions  of  many  others, 
arrives  at  combining  their  will,  at 
uniting  their  efforts,  and  thus  decides 
the  condition  of  man.  It  is  after  this 
manner  that  an  ambitious,  crafty,  and 
voluptuous  Arab  gave  to  his  country  men 
an  impulse,  of  which  the  effect  was 
the  subjugation  and  desolation  of  vast 
countries  in  Asia,  in  Africa,  and  in 
Europe;  whose  consequences  were  suf- 
ficiently potential  to  give  a  novel  system 
of  religion  to  millions  of  human  beings  ; 
to  overturn  the  altars  of  their  former 
gods ;  in  short,  to  alter  the  opinions,  to 
change  the  customs  of  a  considerable  i 
portion  of  the  population  of  the  earth,  j 
But  in  examining  the  primitive  sources 
of  this  strange  revolution,  what  Avere 
the  concealed  causes  that  had  an  influ- 
ence over  this  man,  that  excited  his 
peculiar  passions,  that  modified  his 
temperament?  What  was  the  matter 
from  the  combination  of  Avhich  resulted 
a  crafty,  ambitious,  enthusiastic,  and 
eloquent  man ;  in  short,  a  personage 


competent  to  impose  on  his  fellow 
creatures,  and  capable  of  making  them 
concur  in  his  vieAVs.  They  were  the 
insensible  particles  of  his  blood,  the 
imperceptible  texture  of  his  fibres,  the 
salts,  more  or  less  acrid,  that  stimu- 
lated his  nerves,  the  proportion  of 
igneous  fluid  that  circulated  in  his 
system.  From  Whence  came  these 
elements  1  It  Avas  from  the  Avomb  of 
his  mother,  from  the  aliments  Avhich 
nourished  him,  from  the  climate  in 
which  he  had  his  birth,  from  the  ideas 
he  received,  from  the  air  which  he 
respired,  without  reckoning  a  thousand 
inappreciable  and  transitory  causes, 
that,  in  the  instance  given,  had  modi- 
fied, had  determined  the  passions  of 
this  important  being,  who  had  thereby 
acquired  the  capacity  to  change  the 
face  of  this  mundane  sphere. 

To  causes  so  weak  in  their  principles, 
if  in  the  origin  the  slightest  obstacle 
had  been  opposed,  these  Avonderful 
events,  which  have  astounded  man, 
would  never  have  been  produced.  The 
fit  of  an  ague,  the  consequence  of  bile 
a  little  too  much  inflamed,  had  sufficed, 
perhaps,  to  have  rendered  abortive  all 
the  vast  projects  of  the  legislator  of  the 
Mussulmen.  Spare  diet,  a  glass  of 
water,  a  sanguinary  evacuation,  Avould 
sometimes  have  been  sufficient  to  have 
saved  kingdoms. 

It  Avill  be  seen,  then,  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  human  species,  as  well  as 
that  of  each  of  its  individuals,  every 
instant  depends  on  insensible  causes, 
to  Avhich  circumstances,  frequently  fugi- 
tive, give  birth ;  that  opportunity  de- 
velops, and  convenience  puts  in  action: 
man  attributes  their  effects  to  chance, 
AArhilst  these  causes  operate  necessarily 
and  act  according  to  fixed  rules :  he 
has  frequently  neither  the  sagacity,  nor 
the  honesty,  to  recur  to  their  true  prin- 
ciples ;  he  regards  such  feeble  motives 
Avith  contempt,  because  he  has  been 
taught  to  consider  them  as  incapable 
of  producing  such  stupendous  events. 
They  are,  hoAvever,  these  motives, 
Aveak  as  they  may  appear  to  be,  these 
springs,  so  pitiful  in  his  eyes,  which, 
according  to  her  necessary  laAvs,  suffice 
in  the  hand«  of  nature,  to  move  the 
universe.  The  conquests  of  a  Gengis- 
khan  have  nothing  in  them  that  is  more 
strange  to  the  eye  of  a  philosopher  than 
the  explosion  of  a  mine,  caused  in  its 


116 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


principle  by  a  feeble  spark,  which  com- 
mences with  setting  fire  to  a  single 
grain  of  powder;  this  presently  com- 
municates itself  to  many  millions  of 
other  contiguous  grains,  of  which  the 
united  and  multiplied  powers,  terminate 
by  blowing  Up  mountains,  overthrow- 
ing fortifications,  or  converting  populous 
cities  into  heaps  of  ruins. 

Thus,imperceptible  causes,  concealed 
in  the  bosom  of  nature  until  the  moment 
their  action  is  displayed,  frequently 
decide  the  fate  of  man.  The  happiness 
or  the  wretchedness,  the  prosperity  or 
the  misery  of  each  individual,  as  well 
as  that  of  whole  nations,  are  attached 
to  powers  which  it  is  impossible  for 
him  to  foresee,  to  appreciate,  or  to  arrest 
the  action.  Perhaps,  at  this  moment, 
atoms  are  amassing,  insensible  particles 
are  combining,  of  which  the  assemblage 
shall  form  a  sovereign,  who  will  be 
either  the  scourge  or  the  saviour  of  a 
mighty  empire.*  Man  cannot  answer 
for  his  own  destiny  one  single  instant; 
he  has  no  cognizance  of  what  is  passing 
within  himself;  he  is  ignorant  of  the 
causes  which  act  in  the  interior  of  his 
machine ;  he  knows  nothing  of  the  cir- 
cumstances that  will  give  them  activity 
and  develop  their  energy  ;  it  is,  never- 
theless, on  these  causes,  impossible  to 
be  unravelled  by  him,  that  depends  his 
condition  in  life.  Frequently  an  un- 
foreseen rencounter  gives  birth  to  a 
passion  in  his  soul,  of  which  the  con- 
sequences shall  necessarily  have  an 
influence  over  his  felicity.  It  is  thus 
that  the  most  virtuous  man,  by  a  whim- 
sical combination  of  unlocked  for  cir- 
cumstances, may  become  in  an  instant 
the  most  criminal  of  his  species. 

This  truth,  without  doubt,  will  be 
found  frightful  and  terrible :  but  at 
bottom,  what  has  it  more  revolting 
than  that  which  teaches  him  that  an 
infinity  of  accidents,  as  irremediable  as 
they  are  unforeseen,  may  every  instant 
wrest  from  him  that  life  to  which  he 
is  so  strongly  attached  ?  Fatalism 
reconciles  the  good  man  easily  to  death : 
it  makes  him  contemplate  it  as  a  certain 
means  of  withdrawing  himself  from 
wickedness ;  this  system  shows  death, 
even  to  the  happy  man  himself,  as  a 
medium  between  him  and  those  mis- 


*  By  a  strange  coincidence,  Napoleon 
Buonaparte  was  born  the  same  year  in  which 
the  System  of  Nature  was  first  published. 


fortunes  which  frequently  terminate  by 
poisoning  his  happiness,  and  with  im- 


bittering  the  most  fortunate  existence. 


- 


Let  man  then  submit  to  necessity : 
in  despite  of  himself  it  will  always 
hurry  him  forward :  let  him  resign 
himself  to  nature ;  let  him  accept  the 
good  with  which  she  presents  him  ; 
let  him  oppose  to  the  necessary  evil 
which  she  makes  him  experience,  those 
necessary  remedies  which  she  consents 
to  aiford  him :  let  him  not  disturb  his 
mind  with  useless  inquietude ;  let  him 
enjoy  with  moderation,  because  he  will 
find  that  pain  is  the  necessary  com- 
panion of  excess :  let  him  follow  the 
paths  of  virtue,  because  every  thing 
will  prove  to  him,  even  in  this  world 
of  perverseness,  that  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  render  him  estimable  in 
the  eyes  of  others,  and  to  make  him 
contented  v/ith  himself. 

Feeble,  and  vain  mortal,  thou  pre- 
tendest  to  be  a  free  agent;  alas,  dost 
not  thou  see  all  the  threads  which 
enchain  thee  1  Dost  thou  not  perceive 
that  they  are  atoms  which  form  thee  ; 
that  they  are  atoms  which  move  thee ; 
that  they  are  circumstances  independent 
of  thyself  that  modify  thy  being,  and 
rule  thy  destiny  ?  In  the  puissant  na- 
ture that  environs  thee,  shall  thou  pre- 
tend to  be  the  only  being  who  is  able 
to  resist  her  power'?  Dost  thou  really 
believe,  that  thy  weak  prayers  will 
induce  her  to  stop  in  her  eternal  march, 
or  change  her  everlasting  course  1 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Of  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul ; —  Of  the  Doc- 
trine, of  a  future  State  ; —  Of  Hie  Fear  of 
Death. 

THE  reflections  presented  to  the  reader 
in  this  work,  tend  to  show,  what  ought 
to  be  thought  of  the  human  soul,  as 
well  as  of  its  operations  and  faculties : 
every  thing  proves,  in  the  most  con- 
vincing manner,  that  it  acts  and  moves 
according  to  laws  similar  to  those  pre- 
scribed to  the  other  beings  of  nature ; 
that  it  cannot  be  distinguished  from 
the  body ;  that  it  is  born  with  it ;  that 
it  grows  up  with  it;  that  it  is  modified 
in  the  same  progression ;  in  short,  every 
thing  ought  to  make  man  conclude  that 
it  perishes  with  it.  This  soul,  as  well 


IMMORTALITY  OP  THE  SOUL. 


117 


as  the  body,  passes  through  a  state  of 
weakness  and  infancy ;  it  is  in  this 
stage  of  its  existence  that  it  is  assailed 
by  a  multitude  of  modifications  and  of 
ideas  which  it  receives  from  exterior 
objects  through  the  medium  of  the 
organs ;  that  it  amasses  facts ;  that  it 
collects  experience,  whether  true  or 
false ;  that  it  forms  to  itself  a  system 
of  conduct,  according  to  which  it  thinks 
and  actSj  and  from  whence  results  either 
its  happiness  or  its  misery,  its  reason 
or  its  delirium,  its  virtues  or  its  vices : 
arrived  with  the  body  at  its  full  powers ; 
having  in  conjunction  with  it  reached 
maturity,  it  does  not  cease  for  a  single 
instant  to  partake  in  common  of  its 
sensations,  whether  these  are  agreeable 
or  disagreeable ;  in  consequence  it  con- 
jointly approves  or  disapproves  its  state ; 
like  it,  it  is  either  sound  or  diseased, 
active  or  languishing,  awake  or  asleep. 
In  old  age,  man  extinguishes  entirely, 
his  fibres  become  rigid,  his  nerves  lose 
their  elasticity,  his  senses  are  obtunded, 
his  sight  grows  dim,  his  ears  lose  their 
quickness,  his  ideas  become  uncon- 
nected, his  memory  fails,  his  imagina- 
tion cools  ;  what,  then,  becomes  of  his 
soul?  Alas!  it  sinks  down  with  the 
body ;  it  gets  benumbed  as  this  loses 
its  feeling,  becomes  sluggish  as  this 
decays  in  activity ;  like  it,  when  en- 
feebled by  years  it  fulfils  its  functions 
with  pain  ;  and  this  substance,  which 
is  deemed  spiritual  or  immaterial, 
undergoes  the  same  revolutions,  and 
experiences  the  same  vicissitudes  as 
does  the  body  itself. 

In  despite  of  this  convincing  proof 
of  the  materiality  of  the  soul,  and  of 
its  identity  with  the  body,  some  thinkers 
have  supposed  that  although  the  latter 
is  perishable,  the  former  does  not  perish ; 
that  this  portion  of  man  enjoys  the 
especial  privilege  of  immortality;  that 
it  is  exempt  from  dissolution  and  free 
from  those  changes  of  form  all  the 
beings  in  nature  undergo :  in  conse- 
quence of  this,  man  has  persuaded 
himself  that  this  privileged  soul  does 
not  die :  its  immortality  above  all 
appears  indubitable  to  those  who  sup- 
pose it  spiritual :  after  having  made  it 
a  simple  being,  without  extent,  devoid 
of  parts,  totally  different  from  any  thing 
of  which  he  has  a  knowledge,  he  pre- 
tended that  it  was  not  subjected  to  the 
laws  of  decomposition  common  to  all 


beings,  of  which  experience  shows  him 
the  continual  operation. 

Man,  feeling  within  himself  a  con- 
cealed force  that  insensibly  produced 
action,  that  imperceptibly  gave  direc- 
tion to  the  motion  of  his  machine, 
believed  that  the  entire  of  nature,  of 
whose  energies  he  is  ignorant,  with 
whose  modes  of  acting  he  is  unac- 
quainted, owed  its  motion  to  an  agent 
analogous  to  his  own  soul,  who  acted 
upon  the  great  macrocosm  in  the  same 
manner  that  this  soul  acted  upon  his 
body.  Man  having  supposed  himself 
double,  made  nature  double  also :  he 
distinguished  her  from  her  own  pecu- 
liar energy ;  he  separated  her  from  her 
mover,  which  by  degrees  he  made  spi- 
ritual. Thus  this  being  distinguished 
from  nature  was  regarded  as  the  soul 
of  the  world,  and  the  soul  of  man  was 
considered  as  portions  emanating  from 
this  universal  soul.  This  notion  upon 
the  origin  of  the  soul,  is  of  very  remote 
antiquity.  It  was  that  of  the  Egyptians, 
of  the  Chaldeans,  of  the  Hebrews,  of 
the  greater  number  of  the  wise  men  of 
the  east*  It  was  in  these  schools  that 
Pherecydes,  Pythagoras,  Plato,  drew  up 
a  doctrine  so  nattering  to  the  vanity  of 
human  nature — so  gratifying  to  the 
imagination  of  mortals.  Thus  man 
believed  himself  a  portion  of  the  Divi- 
nity ;  immortal,  like  the  Godhead,  in 
one  part  of  himself;  nevertheless,  reli- 
gions subsequently  invented  have  re- 
nounced these  advantages,  which  they 


*  It  appears  that  Moses  believed,  with  the 
Egyptians,  the  divine  emanation  of  souls : 
according  to  him,  "  God  formed  man  of  the 
dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his 
nostrils  the  breath  of  life ;  and  man  became 
a  living  soul :"  Gen.  ii.  7. — nevertheless  Chris- 
tians at  this  day  reject  this  system  of  Divine 
emanation,  seeing  that  it  supposes  the  Divinity 
divisible;  besides,  their  religion  having  need, 
of  a  Hell  to  torment  the  souls  of  the  damned, 
it  would  have  been  necessary  to  send  a  portion 
of  the  Divinity  to  Hell,  conjointly  with  the 
souls  of  those  victims  that  were  sacrificed  to 
his  own  vengeance.  Although  Moses,  in  the 
above  quotation,  seems  to  indicate  that  the 
soul  was  a  portion  of  the  Divinity,  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  doctrine, of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  was  established  in  any  one  of  the 
books  attributed  to  him.  It  was  during  the 
Babylonish  captivity  that  the  Jews  learned  the 
doctrine  of  future  rewards  and  punishments, 
taught  by  Zoroaster  to  the  Persians,  but  which 
the  Hebrew  Legislator  did  not  understand,  or 
at  least  he  left  his  people  ignorant  on  the 
subject 


118 


IMMORTALITY  OP  THE  SOUL. 


judged  incompatible  with  the  other 
parts  of  their  systems:  they  held  forth 
that  the  sovereign  of  nature,  or  her 
contriver,  was  not  the  soul  of  man,  but 
that  in  virtue  of  his  omnipotence,  he 
created  human  souls  in  proportion  as 
he  produced  the  bodies  which  they 
must  animate;  and  they  taught,  that 
these  souls  once  produced,  by  an  effect 
of  the  same  omnipotence,  enjoyed  im- 
mortality. 

However  it  may  be  with  these  varia- 
tions upon  the  origin  of  souls,  those 
who  supposed  them  emanating  from 
the  Divinity,  believed  that  after  the 
death  of  the  body,  which  served  them 
for  an  envelope,  they  returned  by  re- 
funding to  their  first  source.  Those 
who,  without  adopting  the  opinion  of 
divine  emanation,  admired  the  spiritu- 
ality and  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
were  under  the  necessity  to  suppose  a 
region,  to  find  out  an  abode  for  these 
souls,  which  their  imagination  painted 
to  them  each  according  to  his  fears,  his 
hopes,  his  desires,  and  his  prejudices.  " 
Nothing  is  more  popular  than  the 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul; 
nothing  is  more  universally  diffused 
than  the  expectation  of  another  life. 
Nature  having  inspired  man  with  the 
most  ardent  love  for  his  existence,  the 
desire  of  preserving  himself  for  ever 
was  a  necessary  consequence  :  this 
desire  was  presently  converted  into 
certainty ;  from  that  desire  of  existing 
eternally,  which  nature  has  implanted 
in  him,  he  made  an  argument  to  prove 
that  man  would  never  cease  to  exist. 
Abbadie  says :  "  Our  soul  has  no  useless 
desires,  it  desires  naturally  an  eternal 
life;"  and  by  a  very  strange  logic  he 
concludes,  that  this  desire  could  not 
fail  to  be  fulfilled.*  However  this  may 
be,  man,  thus  disposed,  listened  with 
avidity  to  those  who  announced  to  him 
systems  so  conformable  with  his  wishes. 
Nevertheless,  he  ought  not  to  regard 
as  supernatural  the  desire  of  existing, 
which  always  was,  and  always  will  be, 

*  Cicero  before  Abbadie  had  declared  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  to  be  an  innate  idea 
in  man ;  yet,  strange  to  tell,  in  another  part 
of  his  works  he  considers  Pherecydes  as  the 
inventor  of  the  doctrine — Naturam  ipsam  de 
immprtalitate  animarum  tacitam  judicare ; 
nescio  quomodo  inhaeret  in  mentibus  quasi 
eseculorum  quodani  augurium.  Permanere 
animos  arbitramur  consensu  nationum  om- 
nium.—  Vusculam  Disputed,  lib.  i. 


of  the  essence  of  man ;  it  ought  not  to 
excite  surprise  if  he  received  with  eager- 
ness an  hypothesis  that  flattered  his 
hopes,  by  promising  that  his  desire 
would  one  day  be  gratified ;  but  let  him 
beware  how  he  concludes,  that  this 
desire  itself  is  an  indubitable  proof  of 
the  reality  of  this  future  life,  with  which, 
for  his  present  happiness,  he  seems  to 
be  far  too  much  occupied.  The  passion 
for  existence,  is  in  man  only  a  natural 
consequence  of  the  tendency  of  a  sen- 
sible being,  whose  essence  it  is  to  be 
willing  to  conserve  himself:  in  the 
human  being,  it  follows  the  energy  of 
his  soul  or  keeps  pace  with  the  force 
of  his  imagination,  always  ready  to 
realize  that  which  he  strongly  desires. 
He  desires  the  life  of  the  body,  never- 
theless this  desire  is  frustrated ;  where- 
fore should  not  the  desire  for  the  life  of 
the  soul  be  frustrated  like  the  other  ?f  , 
The  most  simple  reflection  upon  the 
nature  of  his  soul,  ought  to  convince 
man  that  the  idea  of  its  immortality  is 
only  an  illusion  of  the  brain.  Indeed, 
what  is  his  soul,  save  the  principle  of 
sensibility?  What  is  it  to  think,  to 
enjoy,  to  suffer ;  is  it  not  to  feel  1 
What  is  life,  except  it  be  the  assem- 
blage of  modifications,  the  congrega- 
tion of  motion,  peculiar  to  an  organized 
being?  Thus,  as  soon  as  the  body 
ceases  to  live,  its  sensibility  can  no 
longer  exercise  itself;  therefore  it  can 
no  longer have  ideas,  nor  in  consequence 
thoughts.  Ideas,  as  we  have  proved, 
can  only  reach  man  through  his  senses ; 
now,  how  will  they  have  it,  that  once 
deprived  of  his  senses,  he  is  yet  capable 
of  receiving  sensations,  of  having  per- 
ceptions, of  forming  ideas?  As  they 
lave  made  the  soul  of  man  a  being 
separated  from  the  animated  body, 
wherefore  have  they  not  made  life  a 
jeing  distinguished  from  the  living 
>ody  ?  Life  in  a  body  is  the  totality 
of  its  motion ;  feeling  and  thought 
make  a  part  of  this  motion :  thus,  in 
he  dead  man,  these  motions  will  cease 
ike  all  the  others. 

Indeed,  by  what  reasoning  will  it  be 
)roved,  that  this  soul,  which  cannot 


t  The  partisans  of  the  doctrine  of  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  reason  thus:  "All  men 
desire  to  live  for  ever ;  therefore  they  will  live 
"or  ever."  Suppose  the  argument  retorted  on 

hem  :  "  All  men  naturally  desire  to  be  rich  ; 

herefore,  all  men  will  one  day  be  rich." 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


119 


feel,  think,  will,  or  act,  but  by  aid  of  man's 
organs,  can  suffer  pain,  be  susceptible 
of  pleasure,  or  even  have  a  conscious- 
ness of  its  own  existence,  when  the 
organs  which  should  warn  it  of  their 
presence,  are  decomposed  or  destroyed  ? 
Is  it  not  evident  that  the  soul  depends 
on  the  arrangement  of  the  various  parts 
of  the  body,  and  on  the  order  with  which 
these  parts  conspire  to  perform  their 
functions  or  motions?  Thus  the  or- 
ganic structure  once  destroyed,  can  it 
be  doubted  the  soul  will  be  destroyed 
also?  Is  it  not  seen,  that  during  the 
whole  course  of  human  life,  this  soul 
is  stimulated,  changed,  deranged,  dis- 
turbed, by  all  the  changes  man's  organs 
experience  ?  And  yet  it  will  be  insisted 
that  this  soul  acts,  thinks,  subsists, 
when  these  same  organs  have  entirely 
disappeared ! 

An  organized  being  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  clock,  which,  once  broken, 
is  no  longer  suitable  to  the  use  for 
which  it  was  designed.  To  say,  that 
the  soul  shall  feel,  shall  think,  shall 
enjoy,  shall  suffer,  after  the  death  of 
the  body,  is  to  pretend,  that  a  clock, 
shivered  into  a  thousand  pieces,  will 
continue  to  strike  the  hour,  and  have 
the  faculty  of  marking  the  progress  of 
time.  Those  who  say,  that  the  soul  of 
man  is  able  to  subsist  notwithstanding 
the  destruction  of  the  body,  evidently 
support  the  position,  that  the  modifica- 
tion of  a  body  will  be  enabled  to  con- 
serve itself,  after  the  subject  is  de- 
stroyed :  but  this  is  completely  absurd. 

It  will  be  said,  that  the  conservation 
of  the  soul  after  the  death  of  the  body, 
is  an  effect  of  the  divine  omnipotence  : 
but  this  is  supporting  an  absurdity  by 
a  gratuitous  hypothesis.  It  surely  is 
not  meant  by  divine  omnipotence,  of 
whatever  nature  it  may  be  supposed, 
that  a  thing  shall  exist  and  not  exist 
at  the  same  time:  that  a  soul  shall 
feel  and  think  without  the  intermediates 
necessary  to  thought. 

Let  them,  then,  at  least  forbear  assert- 
ing, that  reason  is  not  wounded  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
or  by  the  expectation  of  a  future  life. 
These  notions,  formed  to  flatter  man, 
or  to  disturb  the  imagination  of  the 
uninformed  who  do  not  reason,  cannot 
appear  either  convincing  or  probable  to 
enlightened  minds.  Reason,  exempted 
from  the  illusions  of  prejudice,  is,  with- 


out doubt,  wounded  by  the  supposition 
of  a  soul  that  feels,  that  thinks,  that  is 
afflicted,  that  rejoices,  that  has  ideas, 
without  having  organs ;  that  is  to  say, 
destitute  of  the  only  known  and  natural 
means  by  which  it  is  possible  for  it  to 
feel  sensations,  have  perceptions,  or 
form  ideas.  If  it  be  replied,  that  other 
means  are  able  to  exist,  which  are 
supernatural  or  unknown ;  it  may  be 
answered,  that  these  means  of  trans- 
mitting ideas  to  the  soul  separated  from, 
the  body,  are  not  better  known  to,  or 
more  within  the  reach  of  those  who 
suppose  it  than  they  are  of  other  men. 
It  is  at  least  very  certain,  that  all  those 
who  reject  the  system  of  innate  ideas, 
cannot,  without  contradicting  their  own 
principles,  admit  the  groundless  doc- 
trine of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

In  defiance  of  the  consolation  that 
so  many  persons  pretend  to  find  in  the 
notion  of  an  eternal  existence ;  in  de- 
spite of  that  firm  persuasion,  which 
such  numbers  of  men  assure  us  they 
have,  that  their  souls  will  survive  their 
bodies,  they  seem  so  very  much  alarmed 
at  the  dissolution  of  this  body,  that  they 
do  not  contemplate  their  end,  which 
they  ought  to  desire  as  the  period  of  so 
many  miseries,  but  with  the  greatest 
inquietude:  so  true  it  is,  that  the  real, 
the  present,  even  accompanied  with 
pain,  has  much  more  influence  over 
mankind,  than  the  most  beautiful  chi- 
meras of  the  future,  which  he  never 
views  but  through  the  clouds  of  uncer- 
tainty. Indeed  the  most  religious  men, 
notwithstanding  the  conviction  they 
express  of  a  blessed  eternity,  do  not 
find  these  flattering  hopes  sufficiently 
consoling  to  repress  their  fears  and 
trembling  when  they  think  on  the 
necessary  dissolution  of  their  bodies. 
Death  was  always  for  mortals  the 
most  frightful  point  of  view ;  they 
regard  it  as  a  strange  phenomenon, 
contrary  to  the  order  of  things,  opposed 
to  nature ;  in  a  word,  as  an  effect  of 
the  celestial  vengeance,  as  the  wages 
of  sin.  Although  every  thing  proves 
to  man  that  death  is  inevitable,  he  is 
never  able  to  familiarize  himself  with 
its  idea ;  he  never  thinks  on  it  without 
shuddering,  and  the  assurance  of  pos- 
sessing an  immortal  soul,  but  feebly 
indemnifies  him  for  the  grief  he  feels 
in  the  deprivation  of  his  perishable  body. 
Two  causes  contribute  to  strengthen 


120 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


and  nourish  his  alarm ;  the  one  is,  that 
this  death,  commonly  accompanied  with 
pain,  wrests  from  him  an  existence  that 
pleases  him,  with  which  heis  acquainted, 
to  which  he  is  accustomed ;  the  other  is 
the  uncertainty  of  the  state  that  must 
succeed  his  actual  existence. 

The  illustrious  Bacon  has  said :  that 
"  Men  fear  death,  for  the  same  reason 
that  children  dread  being  alone  in  dark- 
ness."* Man  naturally  challenges  every 
thing  with  which  he  is  unacquainted ; 
he  is  desirous  to  see  clearly,  to  the  end 
that  he  may  guaranty  himself  against 
those  objects  which  may  menace  his 
safety,  or  that  he  may  be  enabled  to 
procure  for  himself  those  which  may 
be  useful  to  him.  The  man  who  exists, 
cannot  form  to  himself  any  idea  of 
non-existence ;  as  this  circumstance 
disturbs  him,  for  want  of  experience 
his  imagination  sets  to  work ;  this 
points  out  to  him,  either  well  or  ill, 
this  uncertain  state :  accustomed  to 
think,  to  feel,  to  be  stimulated  into 
activity,  to  enjoy  society,  he  contem- 
plates as  the  greatest  misfortune  a  dis- 
solution that  will  strip  him  of  these 
objects,  and  deprive  him  of  those  sensa- 
tions which  his  present  nature  has 
rendered  necessary  to  him;  that  will 
prevent  his  heing  warned  of  his  own 
existence;  that  shall  bereave  him  of  his 
pleasures  to  plunge  him  into  nothing. 
In  supposing  it  even  exempt  from  pain, 
he  always  looks  upon  this  nothing  as 
an  afflicting  solitude,  as  a  heap  of  pro- 
found darkness ;  he  sees  himself  in  a 
state  of  general  desolation,  destitute  of 
all  assistance,  and  feeling  the  rigour 
of  this  frightful  situation.  But  does 
not  a  profound  sleep  help  to  give  him 
a  true  idea  of  this  nothing  ?  Does  not 
that  deprive  him  of  every  thing  1  Does 
it  not  appear  to  annihilate  the  universe 
to  him,  and  him  to  the  universe  ?  Is 
death  any  thing  more  than  a  profound 
and  permanent  sleep?  Is  it  for  want 
of  being  able  to  form  an  idea  of  death, 
that  man  dreads  it ;  if  he  could  figure 
to  himself  a  true  image  of  this  state  of 
annihilation,  he  would  from  thence 
cease  to  fear  it ;  but  he  is  not  able  to 
conceive  a  state  in  which  there  is  no 
feeling ;  he  therefore  believes,  that 

Nam  veluti  pueri  trepidant,  atque  omnia  csesis 
In  tenebris  metuunt :  sic  nos  in  luce  timemus 
Interdum,  nihilo  quae  sunt  metuenda  magis  quam 
Quae  pueri  in  tenebris  pavitant,  finguntque  futura. 
.    Lucretius,  Lib.  III.  v.  87,  et  seq. 


j  when  he  shall  no  longer  exist,  he  will 
have  the  same  feelings  and  the  same 
consciousness  of  things  which  during 
his  existence  appear  to  his  mind  in 
such  gloomy  colours:  imagination  pic- 
tures to  him  his  funeral  pomp ;  the 
grave  they  are  digging  for  him  ;  the 
lamentations  that  will  accompany  him 
to  his  last  abode ;  he  persuades  himself 
that  these  melancholy  objects  will  affect 
him  as  painfully,  even  after  his  decease, 
as  they  do  in  his  present  condition  in 
which  he  is  in  full  possession  of  his 
senses.f 

Mortal,  led  astray  by  fear  !  after  thy 
death  thine  eyes  will  see  no  more  ; 
thine  ears  will  hear  no  longer ;  in  the 
depth  of  thy  grave,  thou  wilt  no  more 
be  witness  to  this  scene  which  thine 
imagination  at  present  represents  to 
thee  under  such  dismal  colours ;  thou 
wilt  no  longer  take  part  in  what  shall 
be  done  in  the  world ;  thou  wilt  no 
more  be  occupied  with  what  may  befall 
thine  inanimate  remains,  than  thou 
wast  able  to  be  the  day  previous  to 
that  which  ranked  thee  among  the 
beings  of  thy  species.  To  die,  is  to 
cease  to  think,  to  feel,  to  enjoy,  to 
suffer ;  thy  sorrows  will  not  follow  thee 
to  the  silent  tomb.  Think  of  death, 
not  to  feed  thy  fears  and  to  nourish 
thy  melancholy,  but  to  accustom  thyself 
to  look  upon  it  with  a  peaceable  eye, 
and  to  cheer  thee  up  against  those  false 
terrours  with  which  the  enemies  to  thy 
repose  labour  to  inspire  thee ! 

The  fears  of  death  are  vain  illusions, 
that  must  disappear  as  soon  as  we  learn 
to  contemplate  this  necessary  event 
under  its  true  point  of  view.  A  great 
man  has  defined  philosophy  to  be 
a  meditation  on  death ;%  he  is  not 
desirous  by  that  to  have  it  understood 
that  man  ought  to  occupy  himself 
sorrowfully  with  his  end,  with  a  view 
to  nourish  his  fears ;  on  the  contrary 
he  wishes  to  invite  him  to  familiarize 
himself  with  an  object  that  nature 
has  rendered  necessary  to  him,  and  to 
accustom  himself  to  expect  it  with  a 
serene  countenance.  If  life  is  a  benefit, 
if  it  be  necessary  to  love  it,  it  is  no  less 
necessary  to  quit  it,  and  reason  ought 


t  Nee  videt  fn  vora  nullum  fore  morte  alium,  se : 
Qui  possit  vivus  sibi  se  lugere  peremptum, 
Stansque  jacentum,  nee  lacerari,  urive  dolore. 
Lucret.  Lib.  HI. 

t  MvJtnt  T«  Say*™.    And  Lucan  has  said : 
Scire  mori  sors  prima  viris. 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


121 


to  teach  him  a  calm  resignation  to  the 
decrees  of  fate :  his  welfare  exacts  that 
he  should  contract  the  habit  of  contem- 
plating without  alarm  an  event  that  his 
essence  has  rendered  inevitable:  his 
interest  demands  that  he  should  not  hy 
continual  dread  imbitter  his  -life,  the 
charms  of  which  he  must  inevitably 
destroy,  if  he  can  never  view  its  termi- 
nation but  with  trepidation.  Reason 
and  his  interest  concur  to  assure  him 
against  those  vague  terrours  with  which 
his  imagination  inspires  him  in  this 
respect.  If  he  was  to  call  them  to  his 
assistance,  they  would  reconcile  him  to 
an  object  that  only  startles  him  because 
he  has  no  knowledge  of  it,  or  because 
it  is  only  shown  to  him  with  those 
hideous  accompaniments  with  which 
it  is  clothed  by  superstition.  Let  him, 
then,  endeavour  to  despoil  death  of 
these  vain  illusions,  and  he  will  per- 
ceive that  it  is  only  the  sleep  of  life ; 
that  this  sleep  will  not  be  disturbed 
with  disagreeable  dreams,  and  that  an 
unpleasant  awakening  will  never  fol- 
low it.  To  die,  is  to  sleep ;  it  is  to  re- 
enter  into  that  state  of  insensibility  in 
which  he  was  previous  to  his  birth ; 
before  he  had  senses,  before  he  was 
conscious  of  his  actual  existence. 

I  Laws,  as  necessary  as  those  which 
gave  him  birth,  will  make  him  return 
into  the  bosom  of  nature  from  whence 
he  was  drawn,  in  order  to  reproduce 
him  afterwards  under  some  new  form, 
which  it  would  be  useless  for  him  to 
know.'  without  consulting  him,  nature 
places  him  for  a  season  in  the  order  of 
organized  beings ;  without  his  consent, 
she  will  oblige  him  to  quit  it  to  occupy 

Lsome  other  order. 

Let  him  not  complain,  then,  that 
nature  is  callous;  she  only  makes  him 
undergo  a  law  from  which  she  does 
not  exempt  any  one  being  she  contains.* 
If  all  are  born  and  perish;  if  every  thing 
is  changed  and  destroyed ;  if  the  birth 
of  a  being  is  never  more  than  the  first 
step  towards  its  end ;  how  is  it  possible 
to  expect  that  man,  whose  machine  is 
so  frail,  of  which  the  parts  are  so  com- 


*  Quid  de  rerum  natura  querimur,  ilia  se 
bene  gcssit ;  vita  si  scias  mi,  longa  est. — 
V,  Sencc.  de  Brevitate  Vitce.  Man  complains 
of  the  short  duration  of  life— of  the  rapidity 
with  which  time  flies  away;  yet  the  greater 
number  of  men  do  not  know  how  to  employ 
either  time  or  life. 

No.  IV.— 16 


plicated,  the  whole  of  which  possesses 
such  extreme  mobility,  should  be  ex- 
empted from  the  common  law  which 
decrees  that  even  the  solid  earth  he 
inhabits  shall  experience  change,  shall 
undergo  alteration  —  perhaps  be  de- 
stroyed !  Feeble,  frail  mortal !  thou 
pretendest  to  exist  for  ever ;  wilt  thou, 
then,  that  for  thee  alone,  eternal  nature 
shall  change  her  undeviating  course? 
Dost  thou  not  behold  in  those  eccentric 
comets  with  which  thine  eyes  are 
sometimes  astonished,  that  the  planets 
themselves  are  subject  to  death'/  Live 
then  in  peace,  for  the  season  that  nature 
permits  thee ;  and  if  thy  mind  be  en- 
lightened by  reason,  thou  wilt  die  with- 
out terrour !  • 

Notwithstanding  the  simplicity  of 
these  reflections,  nothing  is  more  rare 
than  the  sight  of  men  truly  fortified 
against  the  fears  of  death :  the  wise 
man  himself  turns  pale  at  its  approach ; 
he  has  occasion  to  collect  the  whole 
force  of  his  mind  to  expect  it  with 
serenity.  It  cannot  then  furnish  matter 
for  surprise,  if  the  idea  of  death  is  so 
revolting  to  the  generality  of  mortals; 
it  terrifies  the  young  ;  it  redoubles  the 
chagrin  and  sorrow  of  the  old,  who  are 
worn  down  with  infirmity :  indeed  the 
aged  although  enfeebled  by  time,  dread 
it  much  more  than  the  young  who  are 
in  the  full  vigour  of  life ;  the  man  of 
many  lustres  is  more  accustomed  to 
live ;  the  powers  of  his  mind  are 
weakened ;  he  has  less  energy :  at 
length  disease  consumes  him ;  yet  the 
unhappy  wretch  thus  plunged  into  mis- 
fortune, and  labouring  under  excru- 
ciating tortures,  has  scarcely  ever  dared 
to  contemplate  death  which  he  ought 
to  consider  as  the  period  to  all  his 
anguish. 

If  the  source  of  this  pusillanimity  be 
sought,  it  will  be  found  in  his  nature, 
which  attaches  him  to  life,  and  in  that 
deficiency  of  energy  in  his  soul,  which 
hardly  any  thing  tends  to  corroborate, 
but  which  every  thing  strives  to  en- 
feeble and  bruise.  All  human  institu- 
tions, all  the  opinions  of  man,  conspire 
to  augment  his  fears,  and  to  render  his 
ideas  of  death  more  terrible  and  revolt- 
ing. Indeed,  superstition  pleases  itself 
with  exhibiting  death  under  the  most 
frightful  traits ;  as  a  dreadful  moment, 
which  not  only  puts  an  end  to  his 
pleasures,  but  gives  him  up  without 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


defence  to  the  strange  rigour  of  a  piti- 
less despot,  which  nothing  can  soften. 
According  to  this  superstition,  the  most 
virtuous  man  is  never  sure  of  pleasing 
him ;  but  has  reason  to  tremble  for  the 
severity  of  his  judgments  ;  to  fear  the 
dreadful  torments  and  endless  punish- 
ments which  await  the  victims  of  his 
caprice,  for  involuntary  weakness  or 
the  necessary  faults  of  a  short-lived 
existence.  This  implacable  tyrant  will 
avenge  himself  of  man's  infirmities, 
his  momentary  offences,  of  the  pro- 
pensities that  have  been  planted  in  his 
heart,  of  the  errours  of  his  mind,  the 
opinions  he  has  imbibed  in  the  society 
in  which  he  was  born  without  his  own 
consent,  the  ideas  he  has  formed,  the 
passions  he  has  indulged,  and  above  all, 
his  not  being  able  to  comprehend  an 
inconceivable  being,  and  all  the  extra- 
vagant dogmas  offered  to  his  accept- 
ance.* 

Such,  then,  are  the  afflicting  objects 
with  which  religion  occupies  its  un- 
happy and  credulous  disciples ;  such 
are  the  fears,  which  the  tyrant  of  human 
thoughts  points  out  to  them  as  salutary. 
In  defiance  of  the  exility  of  the  effect 
which  these  notions  produce  on  the 
greater  number  of  those  who  say  they 
are,  or  who  believe  themselves  per- 
suaded, they  are  held  forth  as  the  most 
powerful  rampart  that  can  be  opposed 
to  the  irregularities  of  man.  Never- 
theless, as  will  be  seen  presently,  it 
will  be  found  that  these  systems,  or 
rather  these  chimeras  so  terrible  to 
behold,  operate  little  or  nothing  on  the 
larger  portion  of  mankind,  who  think 

*  Those  who  dare  to  think  for  themselves — 
those  who  have  refused  to  listen  to  their 
enthusiastic  guides — those  who  have  no  reve- 
rence for  the  Bible — those  who  have  had  the 
audacity  to  consult  their  reason — those  who 
have  boldly  ventured  to  detect  impostors — 
those  who  have  doubted  the  divine  mission  of 
Jesus  Christ — those  who  believe  that  Jehovah 
violated  decency  in  his  visit  to  the  carpenter's 
wife — those  who  look  upon  Mary  as  no  better 
than  a  strolling  wench— those  w'ho  think  that 
St  Paul  was  an  arch  knave, — are  to  smart 
everlastingly  in  flaming  oceans  of  burning 
sulphur,  are  to  float  to  all  eternity  in  the  most 
excruciating  agonies,  on  seas  of  liquid  brim- 
stone, wailing  and  gnashing  their  teeth  :  what 
wonder,  then,  if  man  dreads  to  be  cast  into 
these  hideous  gulfs — if  his  mind  loathes  the 
horrific  picture— if  he  wishes  to  defer  for  a 
season  these  dreadful  punishments — if  he 
clinga  to  an  existence,  painful  as  it  may  be, 
rather  than  encounter  such  revolting  cruelties. 


of  them  but  seldom,  and  never  in  the 
moment  that  passion,  interest,  pleasure, 
or  example,  hurries  them  along.  If 
these  fears  act,  it  is  commonly  on  those 
who  have  but  little  occasion  to  abstain 
from  evil:  they  make  honest  hearts 
tremble, -but  fail  of  effect  on  the  per- 
verse. They  torment  sensible  souls, 
but  leave  those  that  are  hardened  in 
repose ;  they  disturb  tractable  and  gentle 
minds,  but  cause  no  trouble  to  rebellious 
spirits :  thus  they  alarm  none  but  those 
who  are  already  sufficiently  alarmed ; 
they  coerce  only  those  who  are  already 
restrained. 

These  notions,  then,  impress  nothing 
on  the  wicked  ;  when  by  accident  they 
do  act  on  them,  it  is  only  to  redouble 
the  wickedness  of  their  natural  cha- 
racter, to  justify  them  in  their  own 
eyes,  to  furnish  them  with  pretexts  to 
exercise  it  without  fear,  and  to  follow 
it  without  scruple.  Indeed,  the  expe- 
rience of  a  great  number  of  ages  has 
shown  to  what  excess  of  wickedness, 
to  what  lengths  the  passions  of  man 
have  carried  him,  when  they  have  been, 
authorized  and  unchained  by  religion ; 
or,  at  least,  when  he  has  been  enabled 
to  cover  himself  with  its  mantle.  Man 
has  never  been  more  ambitious,  never 
more  covetous,  never  more  crafty,  never 
more  cruel,  never  more  seditious,  than 
when  he  has  persuaded  himself  that 
religion  permitted  or  commanded  him 
to  be  so :  thus  religion  did  nothing  more 
than  lend  an  invincible  force  to  his  na- 
tural passions,  which,  under  its  sacred 
auspices,  he  could  exercise  with  im- 
punity and  without  remorse  ;  still  more, 
the  greatest  villains,  in  giving  free  vent 
to  the  detestable  propensities  of  their 
natural  wickedness,  have  believed  that 
by  displaying  an  over-heated  zeal  they 
merited  well  of  heaven ;  that  they  ex- 
empted themselves  by  crimes  from  that 
chastisement  at  the  hand  of  their  God. 
which  they  thought  their  anterior  con- 
duct had  richly  merited. 

These,  then,  are  the  effects  which 
the  salutary  notions  of  theology  pro- 
duce on  mortals.  These  reflections 
will  furnish  an  answer  to  those  who 
say,  that,  "  if  religion  promised  heaven 
equally  to  the  wicked  as  to  the  righteous, 
there  would  be  found  none  incredulous 
of  another  life."  We  reply  that,  in  point 
of  fact,  religion  does  accord  heaven  to 
the  wicked,  since  it  frequently  places 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


in  this  happy  abode  the  most  useless 
and  the  most  depraved  of  men.* 

Thus  religion,  as  \ve  have  seen 
sharpens  the  passions  of  evil  disposec 
men,  by  legitimating  those  crimes,  a 
which,  without  this  sanction,  they  wouh 
shudd  er  to  commie ;  or  for  which,  at  least 
they  would  feel  shame  and  experience 
remorse.  In  short,  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion furnish  to  the  most  profligate  men 
the  means  of  diverting  from  their  OAvn 
heads  the  thunderbolt  that  should  strike 
their  crimes,  with  the  promise  of  a  never- 
fading  happiness. 

With  respect  to  the  incredulous,  with- 
out doubt  there  may  be  amongst  them 
wicked  men,  as  well  as  amongst  the 
most  credulous ;  but  incredulity  no  more 
supposes  wickedness  than  credulity  sup- 
poses righteousness.  On  the  contrary 
the  man  who  thinks,  who  meditates, 
knows  far  better  the  true  motives  tc 
goodness,  than  he  who  suffers  himself 
to  be  blindly  guided  by  uncertain  mo- 
tives, or  by  the  interest  of  others.  Sensi- 
ble men  have  the  greatest  advantage 
in  examining  opinions  which  it  is  pre- 
tended must  have  an  influence  over 
their  eternal  happiness  :  if  these  are 
found  false  or  injurious  to  their  present 
life,  they  will  not  therefore  conclude 
that  they  have  not  another  life  either 
to  fear  or  to  hope ;  that  they  are  per- 
mitted to  deliver  themselves  up  with 
impunity  to  vices  which  would  do  an 
injury  to  themselves,  or  would  draw 
upon  them  the  contempt  and  anger  of 
society :  the  man  who  does  not  expect 
another  life,  is  the  more  interested  in 
prolonging  his  existence  in  this,  and  in 
rendering  himself  dear  to  his  fellows 
in  the  only  life  of  which  he  has  any 
knowledge :  he  has  made,  a  great  stride 
towards  felicity,  in  disengaging  himself 
from  those  terrours  which  afflict  others. f 

*  Such  were  Moses,  Samuel,  and  David, 
among  the  Jews ;  Mahomet  amongst  the 
Mussulmen;  amongst  the  Christians,  Co.-i- 
stantine,  St.  Cyril,  St.  Athanasius,  St.  Domi- 
nic, and  a  great  many  more  pious  robbers  and 
zealous  persecutors,  whom  the  Church  rcreres! 
We  may  also  add  to  this  list  the  Crusnders, 
Leaguers,  Puritans,  and  our  modern  heterodox 
Saints,  the  Unitarian  Inquisitors  of  Massa- 
chusetts, who,  if  they  had  had  the  power, 
would  have  condemned  Abner  Kneeland  to 
the  devouring  flames. 

t  A  virtuous  and  good  man  has  nothing  to 
fear,  but  every  thing  to  hope ;  for,  if  contrary 
to  what  he  is  able  to  judge,  there  should  be 
a  hereafter  existence,  will  not  his  actions  have 


Superstition,  in  fact,  takes  a  pride  in 
rendering  man  slothful,  credulous,  and 
pusillanimous !  It  is  its  principle  to 
afflict  him  without  intermission ;  to 
redouble  in  him  the  horrours  of  death : 
ever  ingenious  in  tormenting  him,  it 
has  extended  his  inquietudes  beyond 
even  his  known  existence ;  and  its 
ministers,  the  more-  securely  to  dispose 
of  him  in  this  world,  invented  future 
regions,  reserving  to  themselves  the 
privilege  of  awarding  recompenses  to 
those  who  yielded  most  implicitly  to 
their  arbitrary  laws,  and  of  having  their 
God  decree  punishments  to  those  re- 
fractory beings  who  rebelled  against 
their  power.J 

Thus,  far  from  holding  forth  conso- 
lation to  mortals,  far  from  cultivating 
man's  reason,  far  from  teaching  him  to 
yield  under  the  hands  of  necessity, 
religion  strives  to  render  death  still 
more  bitter  to  him,  to  make  its  yoke 
sit  heavy,  to  fill  up  its  retinue  with  a 
multitude  of  hideous  phantoms,  and  to 
render  its  approach  terrible.  By  this 
means  it  has  crowded  the  world  with 
enthusiasts,  whom  it  seduces  by  vague 
promises ;  with  contemptible  slaves, 
whom  it  coerces  with  the  fear  of  imagi- 
nary evils.  It  has  at  length  persuaded, 
man,  that  his  actual  existence  is  only 
a  journey  by  which  he  will  arrive  at  a 
more  important  life.  This  irrational 
doctrine  of  a  future  life  prevents  him 
from  occupying  himself  with  his  true 
happiness ;  from  thinking  of  amelior- 
ating his  institutions,  of  improving  his 
laws,  of  advancing  the  progress  of 
science,  and  of  perfectioning  his  morals. 
Vain  and  gloomy  ideas  have  absorbed 
his  attention  :  he  consents  to  groan 
under  religious  and  political  tyranny ; 
to  live  in  errour,  to  languish  in  mis- 

jeen  so  regulated  by  virtue,  will  he  not  have 
so  comported  himself  in  his  present  existence, 
TS  to  stand  a  fair  chance  of  enjoying  in  their 

idlest  extent  those  felicities  prepared  for  his 
species  1 

t  Let  us  review  the  history  of  Priestcraft  in 
all  ages,  and  we  shall  invariably  find  it  the 
same  crafty  and  contemptible  system.  Tan- 

alus,  for  divulging  their  secrets,  must  eter- 

lally  fear,  engulfed  in  burning  sulphur,  the 
stone  ready  to  fall  on  his  devoted  head  ;  whilst 

lomulus  was  beatified  and  worshipped  as  a 
God  under  the  name  of  Quirinus.  The  same 
oystem  of  Priestcraft  caused  the  philosopher 
^alhsthenes  to  be  put  to  death,  for  opposing 

he  worship  of  Alexander,  and  elevated  the 
monk  Athanasius  to  bo  a  saint  in  heaven ! 


124 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


fortune,  in  the  hope,  when  he  shall  be 
no  more,  of  being  one  day  happier ;  in 
the  firm  confidence,  that  his  calamities, 
his  stupid  patience,  will  conduct  him 
to  a  never-ending  felicity :  he  has  be- 
lieved himself  submitted  to  a  cruel  God, 
who  is  willing  to  make  him  purchase 
his  future  welfare,  at  the  expense  of 
every  thing  most  dear  and  most  valu- 
able to  his  existence  here  below :  they 
have  pictured  their  God  as  irritated 
against  him,  as  disposed  to  appease 
itself  by  punishing  him  eternally  for 
any  efforts  he  should  make  to  withdraw 
himself  from  their  power.  It  is  thus 
that  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  has 
been  most  fatal  to  the  human  species : 
it  plunged  whole  nations  into  sloth, 
made  them  languid,  filled  them  with 
indifference  to  their  present  welfare ; 
or  else  precipitated  them  into  the  most 
furious  enthusiasm,  which  hurried  them 
on  to  tear  each  other  in  pieces  in  order 
to  merit  heaven. 

It  will  be  asked,  perhaps,  by  what 
road  has  man  been  conducted,  to  form 
to  himself  these  strange  and  gratuitous 
ideas  of  another  world?  I  reply,  that 
it  is  a  truth  man  has  no  idea  of  a  future 
life,  which  does  not  exist  for  him ;  the 
ideas  of  the  past  and  the  present  furnish 
his  imagination  with  the  materials  of 
which  he  constructs  the  edifice  of  the 
regions  of  futurity ;  and  Hobbes  says, 
"  We  believe  that  that  which  is,  will 
always  be,  and  that  the  same  causes 
will  have  the  same  effects."  Man  in 
his  actual  state,  has  two  modes  of 
feeling,  one  that  he  approves,  another 
that  he  disapproves :  thus,  persuaded 
that  these  two  modes  of  feeling  must 
accompany  him,  even  beyond  his  pre- 
sent existence,  he  placed  in  the  regions 
of  eternity  two  distinguished  abodes ; 
one  destined  to  felicity,  the  other  to 
misery :  the  one  will  contain  the  friends 
of  his  God ;  the  other  is  a  prison,  des- 
tined to  avenge  Him  on  all  those  who 
shall  not  faithfully  believe  the  doctrines 
promulgated  by  the  ministers  of  a  vast 
variety  of  superstitions.* 

*  Has  sufficient  attention  been  paid  to  the 
fact  that  results  as  a  necessary  consequence 
from  this  reasoning,  which  on  examination 
will  be  found  to  have  rendered  the  first  place 
entirely  useless,  seeing  that  by  the  number 
and  contradiction  of  these  various  systems, 
let  man  believe  which  ever  he  may,  let  him 
follow  it  in  the  most  faithful  manner,  still  he 


Such  is  the  origin  of  the  ideas  upon 
a  future  life,  so  diffused  among  man- 
kind. Every  where  may  be  seen  an 
Elysium  and  a  Tartarus;  a  Paradise 
and  a  Hell ;  in  a  word,  two  distin- 
guished abodes,  constructed  according 
to  the  imagination  of  the  knaves  or 
enthusiasts  who  have  invented  them, 
and  who  have  accommodated  them  to 
the  peculiar  prejudices,  to  the  hopes, 
to  the  fears,  of  the  people  who  believe 
in  them.  The  Indian  figures  the  first 
of  these  abodes  as  one  of  inaction  and 
of  permanent  repose,  because,  being 
the  inhabitant  of  a  hot  climate,  he  has 
learned  to  contemplate  rest  as  the 
extreme  of  felicity :  the  Mussulman 
promises  himself  corporeal  pleasures, 
similar  to  those  that  actually  constitute 
the  object  of  his  research  in  this  life  : 
the  Christian  iiopes  for  ineffable  and 
spiritual  pleasures — in  a  word,  for  a 
happiness  of  which  he  has  no  idea. 

Of  whatever  nature  these  pleasures 
may  be,  man  perceived  that  a  body  was 
needful,  in  order  that  his  soul  might  be 
enabled  to  enjoy  the  pleasures,  or  to 
experience  the  pains  in  reserve  for  him 
by  the  Divinity:  from  hence  the  doc- 
trine of  the  resurrection ;  but  as  he 
beheld  this  body  putrify,  as  he  saw  it 
dissolve,  as  he  witnessed  its  decompo- 
sition after  death,  he  therefore  had  re- 
course to  the  divine  omnipotence,  by 
whose  interposition  he  now  believes  it 
will  be  formed  anew.  This  opinion, 
so  incomprehensible,  is  said  to  have 
originated  in  Persia,  among  the  Magi, 
and  finds  a  great  number  of  adherents, 
who  have  never  given  it  a  serious  ex- 
amination.f  Others,  incapable  of  ele- 

must  be  ranked  as  an  infidel,  as  a  rebel  to  the 
Divinity,  because  he  cannot  believe  in  all ;  and 
those  from  which  he  dissents,  by  a  conse- 
quence of  their  own  creed,  condemn  him  to 
the  prison-house  ? 

t  The  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  appears 
perfectly  useless  to  all  those  who  believe  in 
the  existence  of  a  soul,  that  feels,  thinks,  suf- 
fers, and  enjoys  after  a  separation  from  the 
body  :  indeed,  there  are  already  sects  who  be- 
gin to  maintain,  that  the  body  is  not  necessary, 
that  therefore  it  will  never  be  resurrected. — 
Like  Berkeley,  they  conceive  that  "the  soul 
has  need  neither  of  body  nor  any  exterior  be- 
ing, either  to  experience  sensations,  or  to  have 
ideas."  The  Malcbrandnsts,  in  particular, 
must  suppose  that  the  rejt-ctcd  souls  will  see 
hell  in  the  Divinity,  and  will  fed  themselves 
burn  without  having  occasion  for  bodies  for 
that  purpose. 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


rating  themselves  to  these  suhlime  no- 
tions, believed,  that  under  divers  forms, 
man  animated  successively  different 
animals,  of  various  species,  and  that 
he  never  ceased  to  be  an  inhabitant  of 
the  earth ;  such  was  the  opinion  of 
those  who  adopted  the  doctrine  of 
Met  e  mpsychos  is. 

As  for  the  miserable  abode  of  souls, 
the  imagination  of  fanatics,  who  were 
desirous  of  governing  the  people,  strove 
to  assemble  the  most  frightful  images 
to  render  it  still  more  terrible.  Fire  is 
of  all  beings  that  which  produces  in 
man  the  most  pungent  sensation ;  it 
was  therefore  supposed  that  God  could 
not  invent  any  thing  more  cruel  to 
punish  his  enemies  :  then  fire  was  the 
point  at  which  their  imagination  was 
obliged  to  stop;  and  it  was  agreed 
pretty  generally,  that  fire  would  one 
day  avenge  the  offended  divinity  :*  thus 
they  painted  the  victims  to  his  anger 
as  confined  in  fiery  dungeons  ;  as  per- 
petually rolling  in  a  vortex  of  bitumin- 
ous flames  ;  as  plunged  in  unfathomed 
gulfs  of  liquid  sulphur ;  and  making 
the  infernal  caverns  resound  with  their 
useless  groanings,  and  with  their  un- 
availing gnashing  of  teeth. 

But  it  will  perhaps  be  inquired,  how 
could  man  reconcile  himself  to  the  be- 
lief of  an  existence  accompanied  with 
eternal  torments  ;  above  all,  as  many 
according  to  their  own  religious  systems 
had  reason  to  fear  it  for  themselves? 
Many  causes  have  concurred  to  make 
him  adopt  so  revolting  an  opinion.  In 
the  first  place,  very  few  thinking  men 
have  ever  believed  such  an  absurdity, 
when  they  have  deigned  to  make  use 
of  their  reason  ;  or,  when  they  have 
accredited  it,  this  notion  was  always 
counterbalanced  by  the  idea  of  the 
goodness,  by  a  reliance  on  the  mercy, 
which  they  attributed  to  their  God.f 

*  It  is  no  doubt  to  this  we  owe  the  atone- 
ments by  fire  used  by  a  great  number  of  ori- 
ental nations,  and  practised  at  this  very  day 
by  the  priests  of  the  God  of  Peace,  who  are 
so  cruel  as  to  consign  to  the  flames  all  those 
who  differ  from  them  in  their  ideas  of  the 
Divinity.  As  a  consequence  of  this  absurd 
system,  the  civil  magistrates  condemn  to  the 
fire  the  sacrilegious  and  the  blasphemer — that 
is  to  say,  persons  who  do  no  harm  to  any  one  ; 
whilst  they  are  content  to  punish  more  mildly 
thoss  who  do  a  real  injury  to  society.  So 
much  for  religion  and  its  effects ! 

t  If,  as  Christians  assume,  the  torments  in 


hell  are  to  be  infinite  in  their  duration  and  in- I  order. 


123 

In  the  second  place,  those  who  were 
blinded  by  their  fears,  never  rendered 
to  themselves  any  account  of  these 
strange  doctrines,  which  they  either 
received  with  awe  from  their  legisla- 
tors, or  which  were  transmitted  to  them 
by  their  fathers.  In  the  third  place, 
each  sees  the  object  of  his  terrours 
only  at  a  favourable  distance ;  more- 
over superstition  promises  him  the 
means  of  escaping  the  tortures  he  be- 
lieves he  has  merited.  At  length,  like 
those  sick  people  whom  we  see  cling 
with  fondness  even  to  the  most  painful 
life,  man  preferred  the  idea  of  an  un- 
happy though  unknown  existence,  to 
that  of  non-existence,  which  he  looked 
upon  as  the  most  frightful  evil  that 
could  befall  him,  either  because  he 
could  form  no  idea  of  it,  or,  because 
his  imagination  painted  to  him  this 
non-existence,  this  nothing,  as  the  con- 
fused assemblage  of  all  evils.  A  known 
evil,  of  whatever  magnitude,  alarmed 
him  less,  above  all  when  there  remain- 
ed the  hope  of  being  able  to  avoid  it, 
than  an  evil  of  which  he  knew  nothing, 
upon  which  consequently  his  imagi- 
nation was  painfully  employed,  but  to 
which  he  knew  not  how  to  oppose  a 
remedy. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  supersti- 
tion, far  from  consoling  man  upon  the 
necessity  of  death,  only  redoubles  his 
terrours,  by  the  evils  which  it  pretends 
his  decease  will  be  followed :  these 
terrours  are  so  strong,  that  the  miser- 
able wretches  who  believe  strictly  in 
these  formidable  doctrines,  pass  their 
days  in  affliction,  bathed  in  the  most 
bitter  tears.  What  shall  be  said  of  an 
opinion,  so  destructive  to  society,  yet 
adopted  by  so  many  nations,  which 
announces  to  them,  that  a  severe  God, 
may  at  each  instant,  like  a  thief,  take 
them  unprovided ;  that  at  each  moment 
they  are  liable  to  pass  under  the  most 
rigorous  judgment  ?  What  idea  can 

tenseness,  we  must  conclude  that  man,  who 
is  a  finite  being,  cannot  suffer  infinitely.  God 
himself,  in  despite  of  the  efforts  he  might  make 
to  punish  eteVnally  for  faults  which  are  limited 
by  time,  cannot  communicate  infinity  to  man. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  joys  of  Paradise, 
where  a  finite  being  will  no  more  comprehend 
an  infinite  God,  than  he  does  in  this  world. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  God  perpetuates  the  ex- 
istence of  the  damned,  as  Christianity  teaches, 
he  perpetuates  the  existence  of  sin,  which  ia 
not  very  consistent  with  his  supposed  love  of 


126 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


be  bettet  suited  to  terrify  man,  what 
more  likely  to  discourage  him,  what 
more  calculated  to  damp  the  desire  of 
ameliorating  his  condition,  than  the 
afflicting  prospect  of  a  Avorld  always 
on  the  brink  of  dissolution,  and  of  a 
divinity  seated  upon  the  ruins  of  na- 
ture, ready  to  pass  judgment  on  \he 
human  species  ?  Such  are,  neverthe- 
less, the  fatal  opinions  with  which  the 
mind  of  nations  has  been  fed  for  thou- 
sands of  years  ;  they  are  so  dangerous, 
that  if  by  a  happy  want  of  just  infer- 
ence, he  did  not  derogate  in  his  con- 
duct from  these  afflicting  ideas,  he 
would  fall  into  the  most  abject  stupid- 
ity. How  could  man  occupy  himself 
with  a  perishable  world,  ready  every 
moment  to  crumble  into  atoms  ?  How 
think  of  rendering  himself  happy  on 
earth,  when  it  is  only  the  porch  to  an 
eternal  kingdom?  Is  it,  then,  surpris- 
ing that  the  superstitions  to  which  such 
doctrines  serve  for  a  basis,  have  pre- 
scribed to  their  disciples  a  total  detach- 
ment from  things  below  :  an  entire  re- 
nunciation of  the  most  innocent  pleas- 
ures ;  and  have  given  birth  to  a  slug- 
gishness, to  a  pusillanimity,  to  an  ab- 
jection of  soul,  to  an  insociabilitv,  that 
renders  him  useless  to  himself  and 
dangerous  to  others  ?  If  necessity  did 
not  oblige  man  to  depart  in  his  prac- 
tice from  these  irrational  systems;  if 
his  wants  did  not  bring  him  back  to 
reason,  in  despite  of  his  religious  doc- 
trines, the  whole  world  would  present- 
ly become  a  vast  desert,  inhabited  by 
some  few  isolated  savages,  who  would 
not  even  have  courage  to  multiply 
themselves.  What  kind  of  notions 
are  those  which  must  necessarily  be 
put  aside,  in  order  that  human  associa- 
tion may  subsist  ?  ' 

Nevertheless,  the  doctrine  of  a  fu- 
ture life,  accompanied  with  rewards 
and  punishments,  has  been  regarded 
for  a  great  number  of  ages  as  the  most 
powerful,  or  even  as  the  only  motive 
capable  of  coercing  the  passions  of 
man — as  the  sole  means  that  can  oblige 
him  to  be  virtuous.  By  degrees,  this 
doctrine  has  become  the  basis  of  almost 
all  religious  and  political  systems,  so 
much  so,  that  at  this  day  it  is  said  this 
prejudice  cannot  be  attacked  without 
absolutely  rending  asunder  the  bonds 
of  society.  The  founders  of  religions 
have  made  use  of  it  to  attach  their 


credulous  disciples ;  legislators  have 
looked  at  it  as  the  curb  best  calculated 
to  keep  mankind  under  discipline. 
Many  philosophers  themselves  have 
believed  with  sincerity,  that  this  doc- 
trine was  requisite  to  terrify  man,  and 
thus  divert  him  from  crime.* 

It  must  indeed  be  allowed,  that  this 
doctrine  has  been  of  the  greatest  utility 
to  those  who  have  given  religions  to 
nations  and  made  themselves  its  minis- 
ters: it  was  the  foundation  of  their 
power ;  the  source  of  their  wealth  ;  the 
permanent  cause  of  that  blindness,  the 
solid  basis  of  those  terrours,  which  it 
was  their  interest  to  nourish  in  the  hu- 
man race.  It  was  by  this  doctrine  the 
priest  became  first  the  rival,  then  the 
master  of  kings:  it  is  by  this  dogma 
that  nations  are  filled  with  enthusiasts 
inebriated  with  religion,  always  more 
disposed  to  listen  to  its  menaces  than 
to  the  counsels  of  reason,  to  the  orders 
of  the  sovereign,  to  the  cries  of  nature, 
or  to  the  laws  of  society.  Politics  it- 
self, was  enslaved  to  the  caprice  of  the 
priest ;  the  temporal  monarch  was 
obliged  to  bend  under  the  yoke  of  the 
eternal  monarch  ;  the  one  only  dispos- 
ed of  this  perishable  world  ;  the  other 
extended  his  power  into  the  world  to 
come,  much  more  important  for  man 
than  the  earth,  on  which  he  is  only  a 
pilgrim,  a  mere  passenger.  Thus  the 
doctrine  of  another  life,  placed  the  gov- 
ernment itself  in  a  state  of  dependance 
upon  the  priest ;  the  monarcn  was  no- 
thing more  than  his  first  subject,  and 
he  was  never  obeyed,  but  Avhen  the  two 
were  in  accord  to  oppress  the  human 
race.  Nature  in  vain  cried  out  to  man, 
to  be  careful  of  his  present  happiness ; 
the  priest  ordered  him  to  be  unhappy, 
in  the  expectation  of  future  felicity. 
Reason  in  vain  exhorted  him  to  be 
peaceable,  the  priest  breathed  forth  fa- 
naticism and  fury,  and  obliged  him  to 
disturb  the  public  tranquillity,  every 
time  there  was  a  question  of  the  inte- 


*  When  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  first  came  out  of  the  school  of  Plato,  and 
first  diffused  itself  among  the  Greeks,  it  caused 
the  greatest  ravages ;  it  determined  a  multitude 
of  men,  who  were  discontented  with  their  con- 
dition, to  terminate  their  existence.  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus,  king  of  Eaypt,  seeing  the  effect 
this  doctrine,  which  at  the  present  day  is  look- 
ed upon  as  so  salutary,  produced  on  the  brains 
of  his  subjects,  defended  the  teaching  of  it, 
under  the  penalty  of  death. 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


127 


rests  of  the  invisible  monarch  of  an- 
other life,  or  the  real  interests  of  his 
ministers  in  this. 

Such  is  the  fruit  that  politics  has 
gathered  from  the  doctrine  of  a  future 
life.  The  regions  of  the  woiW  to  come, 
have  enabled  the  priesthood  to  conquer 
the  present  world.  The  expectation 
of  celestial  happiness,  and  the  dread 
of  future  tortures,  only  served  to  pre- 
vent man  from  seeking  after  the  means 
to  render  himself  happy  here  below. 
Thus  errour,  under  whatever  aspect  it 
is  considered,  will  never  be  more  than 
a  source  of  evil  for  mankind.  The 
doctrine  of  another  life,  in  presenting 
to  mortals  an  ideal  happiness,  will  ren- 
der them  enthusiasts ;  in  overwhelming 
them  with  fears,  it  will  make  useless 
beings,  generate  cowards,  form  atra- 
biiarious  or  furious  men,  who  will  lose 
sight  of  their  present  abode,  to  occupy 
themselves  with  the  pictured  regions 
of  a  world  to  come,  and  with  those 
dreadful  evils  which  they  must  fear 
after  their  death. 

If  it  be  insisted,  that  the  doctrine  of 
future  rewards  and  punishments  is  the 
most  powerful  curb  to  restrain  the 
passions  of  man ;  we  shall  reply  by 
calling  in  daily  experience.  If  we  only 
cast  our  eyes  around,  we  shall  see  this 
assertion  contradicted ;  and  we  shall 
find  that  these  marvellous  speculations 
do  not  in  any  manner  diminish  the 
number  of  the  wicked,  because  they 
are  incapable  of  changing  the  tempera- 
ment of  man,  of  annihilating  those 
passions  which  the  vices  of  society 
engender  in  his  heart.  In  those  nations 
who  appear  the  most  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  this  future  punishment,  may 
be  seen  assassins,  thieves,  crafty  knaves, 
oppressors, adulterers,  voluptuaries;  all 
these  pretend  they  are  firmly  persuaded 
of  the  reality  of  an  hereafter ;  yet  in  the 
whirlwind  of  dissipation,  in  the  vortex 
of  pleasure,  in  the  fury  of  their  passions, 
they  no  longer  behold  this  formidable 
future  existence,  which  in  those  mo- 
ments has  no  kind  of  influence  over 
their  earthly  conduct. 

In  short,  in  many  of  those  countries 
where  the  doctrine  of  another  life  is  so 
firmly  established  that  each  individual 
irritates  himself  against  whoever  may 
have  the  temerity  to  combat  the  opinion, 
or  even  to  doubt  it,  we  see  that  it  is 
utterly  incapable  of  impressing  any 


thing  on  rulers  who  are  unjust,  who 
are  negligent  of  the  welfare  of  their 
people,  who  are  debauched  ;  on  courte- 
sans who  are  lewd  in  their  habits ;  on 
covetous  misers ;  on  flinty  extortioners, 
who  fatten  on  the  substance  of  a  nation ; 
on  women  without  modesty ;  on  a  vast 
multitude  of  drunken,  intemperate  and 
vicious  men;  on  great  numbers  even 
amongst  those  priests,  whose  function 
it  is  to  announce  the  vengeance  of 
heaven.  If  it  be  inquired  of  them,  how 
they  dare  to  give  themselves  up  to  such 
scandalous  actions,  which  they  ought 
to  know  are  certain  to  draw  upon  them 
eternal  punishment  ?  They  will  reply : 
that  the  madness  of  their  passions,  the 
force  of  their  habits,  the  contagion  of 
example,  or  even  the  power  of  circum- 
stances, have  hurried  them  along,  and 
have  made  them  forget  the  dreadful 
consequences  in  which  their  conduct 
is  likely  to  involve  them ;  besides,  they 
will  say  that  the  treasures  of  the  divine 
mercy  are  infinite,  and  that  repentance 
suffices  to  efface  the  foulest  transgres- 
sions, the  blackest  guilt,  and  the  most 
enormous  crimes.*  In  this  multitude 
of  wretched  beings,  who,  each  after  his 
own  manner,  desolates  society  with  his 
criminal  pursuits,  you  will  find  only  a 
small  number  who  are  sufficiently  in- 
timidated by  the  fears  of  a  miserable 
hereafter  to  resist  their  evil  propensities. 
What  did  I  say?  these  propensities  are 
in  themselves  too  weak  to  carry  them 
forward,  and  without  the  aid  of  the 
doctrine  of  another  life,  the  law  and 
the  fear  of  censure  would  have  been 
motives  sufficient  to  prevent  them  from 
rendering  themselves  criminal. 

It  is,  indeed,  fearful,  timorous  souls, 
upon  whom  the  terrours  of  another  life 
make  a  profound  impression :  human 
beings  of  this  sort  come  into  the  world 


*  The  idea  of  Divine  Mercy  cheers  up  the 
wicked,  and  makes  him  forget  Divine  Justice. 
And  indeed,  these  two  attributes,  supposed  to 
be  equally  infinite  in  God,  must  counterbalance 
each  other  in  such  a  manner,  that  neither  the 
one  nor  the  other  are  able  to  act.  Yet,  the 
wicked  reckon  upon  an  immoveable  God,  or 
at  leas.t  flatter  themselves  to  escape  from  the 
effects  of  his  justice  by  means  of  his  mercy. 
The  highwayman,  who  knows  that  sooner  or 
later  he  must  perish  on  the  gallows,  says,  that 
he  has  nothing  to  fear,  as  ne  will  then  have 
an  opportunity  of  making  'i  good  end.  Every 
Christian  believes  that  true  repentance  blots 
out  all  their  sins.  The  East  Indian  attributes 
the  same  virtues  to  the  waters  of  the  Gangee. 


128 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


with  moderate  passions,  a  weakly  organ- 
ization, and  a  cool  imagination  ;  it  is 
not  therefore  surprising  that  in  such 
men,  who  are  already  restrained  by 
their  nature,  the  fear  of  future  punish- 
ment counterbalances  the  weak  efforts 
of  their  feeble  passions;  but  it  is  by 
no  means  the  same  with  those  hardened 
criminals,  with  those  men  who  are 
habitually  vicious,  whose  unseemly 
excesses  nothing  can  arrest,  and  who, 
in  their  violence,  shut  their  eyes  to  the 
fear  of  the  laws  of  this  world,  despising 
still  more  those  of  the  other. 

Nevertheless,  how  many  persons  say 
they  are,  and  even  believe  themselves 
restrained  by  the  fears  of  the  life  to 
come  !  But.  either  they  deceive  us,  or 
they  impose  upon  themselves,  by  attri- 
buting to  these  fears  that  which  is  only 
the  effect  of  motives  much  nearer  at 
hand,  such  as  the  feebleness  of  their 
machine,  the  mildness  of  their  tempera- 
ment, the  slender  energy  of  their  souls, 
their  natural  timidity,  the  ideas  imbibed 
in  their  education,  the  fear  of  conse- 
quences immediately  resulting  from 
criminal  actions,  the  physical  evils 
attendant  on  unbridled  irregularities : 
these  are  the  true  motives  that  restrain 
them,  and  not  the  notions  of  a  future 
life,  which  men  who  say  they  are  most 
firmly  persuaded  of  its  existence,  forget 
whenever  a  powerful  interest  solicits 
them  to  sin.  If  for  a  time  man  would 
pay  attention  to  what  passes  before  his 
eyes,  he  would  perceive  that  he  ascribes 
to  the  fear  of  his  God  that  which  is  in 
reality  only  the  effect  of  peculiar  weak- 
ness, of  pusillanimity,  of  the  small 
interest  found  to  commit  evil :  these 
men  would  not  act  otherwise  than  they 
do  if  they  had  not  this  fear  before  them ; 
if  therefore  he  reflected,  he  would  feel 
that  it  is  always  necessity  that  makes 
men  act  as  they  do. 

Man  cannot  be  restrained,  when  he 
does  not  find  within  himself  motives 
sufficiently  powerful  to  conduct  him 
back  to  reason.  There  is  nothing, 
either  in  this  world  or  in  the  other, 
that  can  render  him  virtuous  when  an 
untoward  organization,  a  mind  badly 
cultivated,  a  violent  imagination,  in- 
veterate habits,  fatal  examples,  power- 
ful interests,  invite  him  from  every 
quarter  to  the  commission  of  crime. 
No  speculations  are  capable  of  restrain- 
ing the  man  who  braves  public  opinion, 


who  despises  the  law,  who  is  careless 
of  its  censure,  who  turns  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  cries  of  conscience,  whose  power 
in  this  world  places  him  out  of  the 
reach  of  punishment.*  In  the  violence 
of  his  transports  he  will  fear  still  less 
a  distant  futurity,  of  which  the  idea 
always  recedes  before  that  which  he 
believes  necessary  to  his  immediate 
and  present  happiness.  AH  lively  pas- 
sions blind  man  to  every  thing  that  is 
not  its  immediate  object;  the  terrours 
of  a  future  life,  of  which  his  passions 
always  possess  the  secret  to  diminish 
to  him  the  probability,  can  effect  nothing 
upon  the  wicked  man  who  does  not  fear 
even  the  much  nearer  punishment  of 
the  law— who  sets  at  naught  the  assured 
hatred  of  those  by  whom  he  is  sur- 
rounded. Man,  when  he  delivers  him- 
self up  to  crime,  sees  nothing  certain 
except  the  supposed  advantage  which 
attends  it ;  the  rest  always  appear  to 
him  either  false  or  problematical. 

If  man  would  but  open  his  eyes,  he 
would  clearly  perceive,  that  to  effect 
any  thing  upon  hearts  hardened  by 
crime,  he  must  not  reckon  upon  the 
chastisement  of  an  avenging  Divinity, 
which  the  self-love  natural  to  man 
always  shows  him  as  pacified  in  the 
long  run.  He  who  has  arrived  at  per- 
suading himself  that  he  cannot  be  happy 
without  crime,  will  always  readily  de- 
liver himself  up  to  it  notwithstanding 
the  menaces  of  religion.  Whoever  is 
sufficiently  blind,  not  to  read  his  infamy 
in  his  own  heart,  to  see  his  own  Tile- 
ness  in  the  countenances  of  his  asso- 
ciates, his  own  condemnation  in  the 
anger  of  his  fellow  men,  his  own  im- 
worthiness  in  the  indignation  of  the 
judges  established  to  punish  the  offences 
he  may  commit ;  such  a  man.  I  say,  will 
never  feel  the  impression  his  crimes 


*  It  will  be  said,  that  the  fear  of  another 
life  is  a  curb  useful  at  least  to  restrain  princes 
and  nobles,  who  have  no  other;  and  that  this 
curb,  such  as  it  is,  is  better  than  none.  But 
it  has  been  sufficiently  proved  that  the  belief 
in  a  future  life  does  not  controul  the  actions 
of  sovereigns.  The  only  way  to  prevent 
sovereigns  from  injuring  society,  is,  to  make 
them  subservient  to  the  laws,  and  to  prevent 
their  ever  having  the  right  or  power  of  enslav- 
ing and  oppressing  nations  according  to  the 
whim  or  caprice  of  the  moment.  Therefore, 
a  good  political  constitution,  founded  upon 
natural  rights  and  a  sound  education,  is  the 
only  efficient  check  to  the  malpractices  of  the 
rulers  of  nations. 


IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL. 


129 


shall  make  on  the  features  of  a  judge  ' 
that  is  either  hidden  from  his  view,  or 
that  he  only  contemplates  at  a  distance. 
The  tyrant,  who  with  dry  eyes  can  hear 
the  cries  of  the  distressed,  who  with 
callous  heart  can  behold  the  tears  of  a 
whole  people  of  whose  misery  he  i«  the 
cause,  will  not  see  the  angry  counte- 
nance of  a  more  powerful  master. 
When  a  haughty,  arrogant  monarch, 
pretends  to  be  accountable  for  his 
actions  to  the  Divinity  alone,  it  is 
because  he  fears  his  nation  more  than 
he  does  his  God. 

On  the  other  hand,  does  not  religion 
itself  annihilate  the  effects  of  those 
fears  which  it  announces  as  salutary  ? 
Does  it  not  furnish  its  disciples  with 
the  means  of  extricating  themselves 
from  the  punishments  with  which  it 
has  so  frequently  menaced  them?  Doe? 
it  not  tell  them,  that  a  steril  repentance 
will,  even  at  the  moment  of  death,  dis- 
arm the  celestial  wrath ;  that  it  will 
purify  the  filthy  souls  of  sinners  1  Do 
not  even  the  priests,  in  some  super- 
stitions, arrogate  to  themselves  the 
right  of  remitting  to  the  dying,  the 
punishment  due  to  the  crimes  com- 
mitted during  the  course  of  a  disorderly 
life  1  In  short,  do  not  the  most  perverse 
men,  encouraged  in  iniquity, debauchery, 
and  crime,  reckon,  even  to  the  last  mo- 
ment, upon  the  aid  of  a  religion  that 
promises  them  the  infallible  means  of 
reconciling  themselves  to  the  Divinity 
whom  they  have  irritated,  and  of  avoid- 
ing his  rigorous  punishments  ? 

In  consequence  of  these  notions,  so 
favourable  to  the  wicked,  so  suitable  to 
tranquillize  their  fears,  we  see  that 
the  hope  of  an  easy  expiation,  far  from 
correcting  man,  engages  him  to  persist 
until  death  in  the  most  crying  disorders. 
Indeed,  in  despite  of  the  numberless 
advantages  which  he  is  assured  flows 
from  the  doctrine  of  a  life  to  come,  in 
defiance  of  its  pretended  efficacy  to 
repress  the  passions  of  men,  do  not  the 
priests  themselves,  although  so  inter- 
ested in  the  maintenance  of  this  system, 
every  day  complain  of  its  insufficiency  1 
They  acknowledge,  that  mortals,  whom 
from  their  infancy  they  have  imbued 
with  these  ideas,  are  not  less  hurried 
forward  by  their  evil  propensities,  less 
sunk  in  the  vortex  of  dissipation,  le^s 
the  slaves  to  their  pleasures,  less  capti- 
vated by  bad  habits,  less  driven  along 

No.  V.— 17 


by  the  torrent  of  the  world,  less  seduced 
by  their  present  interest,  which  make 
them  forget  equally  the  recompense 
and  the  chastisement  of  a  future  exist- 
ence. In  a  word,  the  ministers  of 
Heaven  allow,  that  their  disciples,  for 
the  greater  part,  conduct  themselves  in 
this  world  as  if  they  had  nothing  either 
to  hope  or  to  fear  in  another. 

But  let  it  be  supposed  for  a  moment 
that  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishments 
was  of  some  utility,  and  that  it  really 
restrained  a  small  number  of  indi- 
viduals ;  what  are  these  feeble  advan- 
tages compared  to  the  numberless  evils 
that  flow  from  it?  Against  one  timid 
man,  whom  this  idea  restrains,  there 
are  thousands  upon  whom  it  operates 
nothing;  there  are  millions  whom  it 
makes  irrational ;  whom  it  renders 
savage  persecutors ;  whom  it  converts 
into  useless  and  wicked  fanatics  ;  there 
are  millions  whose  mind  it  disturbs, 
and  whom  it  diverts  from  their  duties 
towards  society ;  there  are  an  infinity 
whom  it  grievously  afflicts  and  troubles, 
without  producing  any  real  good  for 
their  associates.* 


*  Many  persons,  convinced  of  the  utility  of 
the  belief  in  another  life,  consider  those  who 
do  not  fall  in  with  this  doctrine  as  the  enemies 
of  society.  However,  it  will  be  found  on 
examination  that  the  wisest  and  the  most 
enlightened  men  of  antiquity  have  believed, 
not  only  that  the  soul  is  material  and  perishes 
with  the  body,  but  also  that  they  have  attacked 
without  hesitation  and  without  subterfuge  the 
opinion  of  future  punishments.  This  senti- 
ment was  not  peculiar  to  the  Epicureans,  but 
was  adopted  by  philosophers  of  all  sects,  by 
Pythagoreans,  by  Stoics,  by  Peripatetics,  by 
Academics;  in  short,  by  the  most  godly  and 
the  most  virtuous  men  of  Greece  and  Rome. 
Pythagoras,  according  to  Ovid,  speaks  thus : — 

O  Genus  attotiifnm  pelida?  formidine  Mortis, 
Quid  stijra,  quid  tenobras,  et  noiniua  vana  timetis 
Materiem  vatum,  falsique  pericula  mundi  ! 

Timreus  of  Locris,  who  was  a  Pythagorean, 
admits  that  the  doctrine  of  future  punishments 
was  fabulous,  solely  destined  for  the  imbecility 
of  the  uninformed,  and  but  little  calculated  for 
those  who  cultivate  their  reason. 

Aristotle  expressly  says,  that,  "  Man  has 
neither  good  to  hope,  nor  evil  to  fear  after 
death." 

The  Platonists,  who  made  the  soul  immor- 
tal, could  not  have  any  idea  of  future  punish- 
ments, because  the  soul  according  to  them 
was  a  portion  of  the  Divinity,  which,  after  the 
dissolution  of  the  body,  it  returned  to  rejoin. 
Now,  a  portion  of  the  Divinity  could  not  be 
subject  to  suffer. 

Zeno,  according  to  Cicero,  supposed  the 
sov,l  to  bo  an  igneous  substance,  from  whence 


130 


EDUCATION,  MORALS,    &c. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


Education,  JMorals,  and  the  Laws,  suffice  to 
restrain  JMan. —  Of  the  Desire  of  Immor- 
tality.— Of  Suicide. 

IT  is  not  then  in  an  ideal  world, 
existing  no  where  but  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  man,  that  he  must  seek  to  collect 
motives  calculated  to  make  him  act  pro- 
perly in  this ;  it  is  in  the  visible  world 
that  will  be  found  incitements  to  divrert 
him  from  crime  and  to  rouse  him  to 
virtue.  It  is  in  nature,  in  experience, 

lie  concluded  it  destroyed  itself.— Zenoni  Stoico 
animus  ignis  videtur.  Si  sit  ignis,  extinguetur ; 
interibit  cum  reliquo  corpore. 

This  philosophical  orator,  who  was  of  the 
sect  of  the  Academics,  is  not  always  in  accord 
with  himself;  however,  on  several  occasions 
he  treats  openly  as  fables  the  torments  of  Hell, 
and  looks  upon  death  as  the  end  of  every  thing 
for  man. —  Vide  'l\isculan.,  C.  38. 

Seneca  is  filled  with  passages  which  con- 
template death  as  a  state  of  total  annihilation :— 
Mors  est  non  esse.  Id  quale  sit  jam  scio ;  hoc 
erit  post  me  quod  ante  me  fuit.  Si  quid  in  hac 
re  tormenti  est,  necesse  est  et  fuisse  antequam 
prodiremus  in  lucem  ;  atqui  nullam  sensimus 
tune  vexationem.  Speaking  of  the  death  of 
his  brother,  he  says : — Quid  itaque  ejus  desi- 
derio  maceror,  qui  aut  beatus,  aut  nullus  est  ? 
But  nothing  can  be  more  decisive  than  what 
he  writes  to  Marcia  to  console  him.  (chap.  19.)— 
Cogita  nullis  defunctum  malis  affici :  ilia  qua; 
nobis  inferos  faciunt  terribiles,  fabulam  esse : 
nullas  imminere  mortuis  tenebras,  nee  carce- 
rem,  nee  flumina  flagrantia  igne,  nee  oblivi- 
qnis  amnem,  nee  tribunalia,  et  reos  et-in  ilia 
libertate  tarn  laxa  iterum  tyrannos:  luserunt 
ista  poetee  et  vanis  nos  agitavere  terroribus. 
Mors  omnium  dolorum  et  solutio  est  et  finis  : 
ultra  quam  mala  nostra  non  exeunt,  quas  nos 
in  illam  tranquilitatem,  in  qua  antequam 
nasceremur,  jacuimus,  reponit. 

Here  is  also  another  conclusive  passage 
from  this  philosopher,  which  is  deserving  of 
the  attention  of  the  reader : — Si  animus  fortuita 
contcmpsit;  si  deorum  hominumque  formidi- 
nem  ejecit,  et  scit  non  multum  ab  hominc 
timendurn,  a  dco  nihil ;  sicontemptor  omnium 
quibus  torquetur  vita  eo  perductus  est  ut  illi 
liqueat  mortem  nullius  niali  esse  material!), 
multorum  finem. —  V.  De  Benrficiis,  VII.  i. 

Seneca,  the  tragedian,  explains  himself  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  philosopher : — 

Post  mortem  nihil  est,  ipsaque  mors  nihil. 

Velocis  spatii  meta  novissima. 

Quseris  quo  jaceas  post  obitum  loco  1 

Quo  non  nnta  jacent. 

Mors  individua  est  noxia  corpori, 

Nee  parcens  animffi. 

Troades. 

Epictetus  has  the  same  idea.  In  a  passage 
reported  by  Arrian,  he  says : — "  But  where  are 
you  going?  It  cannot  be  to  a  place  of  suffering : 
you  will  only  return  to  the  place  from  whence 
you  came ;  you  are  about  to  be  again  peace- 


in  truth,  that  he  must  search  out  reme- 
dies for  the  evils  of  his  species,  and 
for  motives  suitable  to  infuse  into  the 
human  heart  propensities  truly  useful 
for  society. 

If  attention  has  been  paid  to  what 
has  been  said  in  the  course  of  this  work, 
it  will  be  seen,  that  above  all  it  is 
education  that  will  best  furnish  the  true 
means  of  rectifying  the  wanderings  of 
mankind.  It  is  this  that  should  scatter 
the  seeds  in  his  heart ;  cultivate  the 
tender  shoots ;  make  a  profitable  use 

ably  associated  with  the  elements  from  whence 
you  are  derived.  That  which  in  your  compo- 
sition is  of  the  nature  of  fire,  will  return  to  the 
element  of  fire ;  that  which  is  of  the  nature  of 
earth,  will  rejoin  itself  to  the  earth ;  that  which 
is  air,  will  reunite  itself  with  air ;  that  which  is 
water,  will  resolve  itself  into  water ;  there  is 
no  Hell,  no  Acheron,  no  Cocytus,  no  Phlege- 
thon." — See  Arrian.  in  Epiclet.  lib.  iii.  cap.  13. 
In  another  place  he  says :  ''  The  hour  of  death 
approaches ;  but  do  not  aggravate  your  evil, 
nor  render  things  worse  than  they  are :  repre- 
sent them  to  yourself  under  their  true  point  of 
view.  The  time  is  come  when  the  materials 
of  which  you  are  composed,  go  to  resolve 
themselves  into  the  elements  from  whence 
they  were  originally  borrowed.  What  is  there 
that  is  terrible  or  grievous  in  that  1  Is  there 
any  thing  in  the  world,  that  perishes  totally  ?" — 
See  Arrian.  lib.  iv.  cap.  1.  §  1. 

The  sage  and  pious  Antoninus  says :  "  He 
who  fears  death,  either  fears  to  be  deprived  of 
all  feeling,  or  dreads  to  experience  different 
sensations.  If  you  lose  all  feeling,  you  will 
no  longer  be  subject  either  to  pain  or  to  misery. 
If  you  are  provided  with  other  senses  of  a 
different  nature,  you  will  become  a  creature 
of  a  different  species."  This  great  emperor 
further  says :  "  that  we  must  expect  death 
with  tranquillity,  seeing  that  it  is  only  a  dis- 
solution of  the  elements  of  which  each  animal 
is  composed." — See  the  Moral  Reflections  of 
Marcus  Antoninus,  lib.  ii. 

To  the  evidence  of  so  many  great  men  of 
Pagan  antiquity,  may  be  joined  that  of  the 
author  of  Ecclesiastes,  who  speaks  of  death 
and  of  the  condition  of  the  human  soul,  like 
an  Epicurean ;  he  says :  "  For  that  which 
befalleth  the  sons  of  men  befalleth  beasts ; 
even  one  thing  befalleth  them :  as  the  one 
dieth,  so  dieth  the  other;  yea,  they  have  all 
one  breath ;  so  that  a  man  hath  no  pre- 
eminence above  a  beast ;  for  all  is  vanity. 
All  go  unto  one  place;  all  are  of  the  dust, 
and  all  turn  to  dust  again."  And  further, 
"  wherefore  I  perceive,  that  there  is  nothing 
better,  than  that  a  man  should  rejoice  in  his 
own  works ;  for  that  is  his  portion :  for  who 
shall  bring  him  to  see  what  shall  be  after 
him?" 

In  short,  how  can  Christians  reconcile  the 
utility  or  the  necessity  of  this  doctrine  with 
the  fact,  that  the  legislator  of  the  Jews,  inspired 
by  the  Divinity,  remained  silent  on  a  subject 
that  is  said  to  be  of  so  much  importance  ? 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,    &c. 


131 


of  his  dispositions ;  turn  to  account 
those  faculties  which  depend  on  his 
organization  ;  which  should  cherish  the 
fire  of  his  imagination,  kindle  it  for 
useful  objects ;  damp  ,it,  or  extinguish 
it  for  others ;  in  short,  it  is  this  which 
should  make  sensible  souls  contract 
habits  that  are  advantageous  for  society, 
and  beneficial  to  the  individual.  Brought 
up  in  this  manner,  man  would  not  have 
occasion  for  celestial  punishments  to 
teach  him  the  value  of  virtue ;  he  would 
not  need  to  behold  burning  gulfs  of 
brimstone  under  his  feet,  to  induce  him 
to  feel  horrour  for  crime ;  nature,  with- 
out these  fables,  would  teach  him  much 
better  what  he  owes  to  himself,  and 
the  law  would  point  out  to  him  what 
lie  owes  to  the  body  politic  of  which 
he  is  a  member.  It  is  thus  that  edu- 
cation would  form  valuable  citizens 
to  the  state  ;  the  depositaries  of  power 
would  distinguish  those  whom  educa- 
tion should  have  thus  formed,  by  reason 
of  the  advantages  which  they  would 
procure  for  their  country ;  they  would 
punish  those  who  should  be  found 
injurious  to  it ;  it  would  make  the  citi- 
zens see,  that  the  promises  of  reward 
which  education  and  morals  held  forth, 
are  by  no  means  vain ;  and  that  in  a 
state  well  constituted,  virtue  is  tli<>  trim 
and  only  road  to  happine-s  :  t;ilcnt>  tin- 
way  to  gain  respect  ;  mul  that  inutility 
and  crime  lead  to  contempt  and  mis- 
fortune. 

A  just,  enlightened,  virtuous,  and  vigi- 
lant government,  who  should  honestly 
propose  the  public  good,  would  have 
no  occasion  either  for  fables  or  for 
falsehoods  to  govern  reasonable  sub- 
jects ;  it  would  blush  to  make  use  of 
imposture  to  deceive  citizens  who. 
instructed  in  their  duties,  would  find 
their  interest  in  submitting  to  equitable 
laws ;  who  would  be  capable  of  feeling 
the  benefit  these  have  the  power  of 
conferring  on  them;  it  would  know, 
that  public  esteem  has  more  power 
over  men  of  elevated  minds  than  the 
terrour  of  the  laws ;  it  would  feel,  that 
habit  is  sufficient  to  inspire  them  with 
horrour,  even  for  those  concealed  crimes 
that  escape  the  eyes  of  society ;  it  would 
understand,  that  the  visible  punishments 
of  this  world  impose  much  more  on  the 
ignorant  than  those  of  an  uncertain  and 
distant  futurity :  in  short,  it  would  ascer- 
tain that  the  sensible  benefits  within  the 


compass  of  the  sovereign  power  to  dis- 
tribute, touch  the  imagination  of  mortals 
more  keenly  than  those  vague  recom- 
penses which  are  held  forth  to  them  in 
a  future  existence. 

Man  is  almost  every  where  so  wicked, 
so  corrupt,  so  rebellious  to  reason,  only 
because  he  is  not  governed  according 
to  his  nature,  nor  properly  instructed  in 
her  necessary  laws :  he  is  every  where 
fed  with  useless  chimeras;  everywhere 
submitted  to  masters  who  neglect  his 
instruction,  or  who  only  seek  to  deceive 
him.  On  the  face  of  this  globe  we 
only  see  unjust  sovereigns,  enervated 
by  luxury,  corrupted  by  flattery,  de- 
praved by  licentiousness,  made  wicked 
by  impunity,  devoid  of  talents,  without 
morals,  destitute  of  virtue,  and  incapable 
of  exerting  any  energy  for  the  benefit 
of  the  states  they  govern ;  chey  are  con- 
sequently but  little  occupied  with  the 
welfare  of  their  people,  and  indifferent 
to  their  duties,  of  which  indeed  they 
are  often  ignorant.  Stimulated  by  the 
desire  of  continually  finding  means  to 
feed  their  insatiable  ambition,  they 
engage  in  useless,  depopulating  wars, 
and  never  occupy  their  mind  with  those 
objects  which  are  the  most  important 
to  the  happiness  of  their  nation :  inter- 
ested in  maintaining  the  received  preju- 
dices, they  never  wish  to  consider  the 
means  of  curing  them :  in  short,  de- 
prived themselves  of  that  understanding 
which  teaches  man  that  it  is  his  interest 
to  be  kind,  just,  and  virtuous,  they  ordi- 
narily reward  only  those  crimes  which 
their  imbecility  makes  them  imagine  as 
useful  to  them,  and  they  generally  pun- 
ish those  virtues  which  are  opposed  to 
their  own  imprudent  passions.  Under 
such  masters,  is  it  surprising  that  society 
should  be  ravaged  by  perverse  men 
who  emulate  each  other  in  oppressing 
its  members,  in  sacrificing  its  dearest 
interests.  The  state  of  society  is  a  state 
of  hostility  of  the  sovereign  against  the 
whole,  of  each  of  its  members  the  one 
against  the  other.*  Man  is  wicked, 


'  It  must  be  observed  I  do  not  say  here,  ; 
like  Hobbes,  that  the  state  of  nature  is  a  state 
of  war,  but  that  men,  by  their  nature,  nro 
neither  good  nor  wicked;  in  fact,  man  will  be 
either  good  or  bad,  according  as  he  is  modified. 
If  men  are  so  ready  to  injure  one  another,  it  is 
only  because  every  thing  conspires  to  give 
them  different  interests.  Each  one,  if  I  ma y 
say  so,  lives  isolated  in  society,  and  their  chiefs 
avail  themselves  of  their  divisions  to  subdue 


132 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,    &c. 


not  because  he  is  born  so,  but  because 
he  is  rendered  so ;  the  great,  the  power- 
ful, crush  with  impunity  the  indigent 
and  the  unhappy ;  these,  at  the  risk  of 
their  lives,  seek  to  retaliate  the  evil 
they  have  received  :  they  attack  either 
openly  or  in  secret  a  country  who  to 
them  is  a  stepmother,  who  gives  all  to 
some  of  her  children,  and  deprives  the 
others  of  every  thing :  they  punish  it 
for  its  partiality,  and  clearly  show  that 
the  motives  borrowed  from  a  life  here- 
after are  impotent  against  the  fury  of 
those  passions  to  which  a  corrupt 
administration  has  given  birth  in  this 
life ;  that  the  terrour  of  the  punish- 
ments in  this  world  are  too  feeble 
against  necessity,  against  criminal  ha- 
bits ;  against  a  dangerous  organization 
uncorrected  by  education. 

In  all  countries  the  morals  of  the 
people  are  neglected,  and  the  govern- 
ment is  occupied  only  with  rendering 
them  timid  and  miserable.  Man  iy 
almost  every  where  a  slave ;  it  mus 
then  follow,  of  necessity,  that  he  is 
base,  interested,  dissimulating,  without' 
honour ;  in  a  word,  that  he  has  the 
vices  of  the  state  of  which  he  is  a 
citizen.  Every  where  he  is  deceived, 
encouraged  in  ignorance,  and  prevented 
from  cultivating  his  reason ;  of  course 
he  must  every  where  be  stupid,  irra- 
tional, and  wicked  ;  every  where  he 
sees  vice  and  crime  applauded  and 
honoured  ;  thence  he  concludes  vice 
to  be  a  good ;  virtue  only  a  useless 
sacrifice  of  himself:  every  where  he 
is  miserable,  therefore  he  injures  his 
fellow  men  to  relieve  his  own  anguish  : 
it  is  in  vain  to  show  him  heaven,  in 
order  to  restrain  him;  his  views  pre- 
sently descend  again  to  the  earth,  where 
he  is  willing  to  be  happy  at  any  price ; 
therefore  the  laws,  which  have  neither 
provided  for  his  instruction,  for  his 
morals,  nor  Ms  happiness,  menace  him 
uselessly,  and  punish  him  for  the  un- 
just negligence  of  his  legislators.  If 
politics,  more  enlightened,  did  seriously 
occupy  itself  with  the  instruction  and 
with  the  welfare  of  the  people  ;  if  laws 
were  more  equitable ;  if  each  society, 
less  partial,  bestowed  on  its  members 
the  care,  the  education,  and  the  assist- 

the  whole.  Divide  el  impera  is  the  maxim 
that  all  bad  governments  follow  by  instinct. 
Tyrants  would  be  badly  off  if  they  had  to  rule 
over  virtuous  men  only. 


ance  which  they  have  a  right  to  expect  5 
if  governments  less  covetous,  and  more 
vigilant,  were  sedulous  to  render  their 
subjects  more  happy,  there  would  not 
be  seen  such  numbers  of  malefactors, 
of  robbers,  of  murderers,  who  every 
where  infest  society ;  they  would  no1 
be  obliged  to  destroy  life,  in  order  to 
punish  a  wickedness,  which  is  com- 
monly ascribable  to  the  vices  of  their 
own  institutions  :  it  would  be  unneces- 
sary to  seek  in  another  life  for  fanciful 
chimeras,  which  always  prove  abortive 
against  the  infuriate  passions,  and 
against  the  real  wants  of  man.  In 
short,  if  the  people  were  better  in- 
structed and  more  happy,  politics  would 
no  longer  be  reduced  to  the  exigency 
of  deceiving  them  in  order  to  restrain 
them;  nor  to  destroy  so  many  unfor- 
tunates for  having  procured  necessaries 
at  the  expense  of  their  hardhearted 
fellow  citizens. 

'  When  it  shall  be  desired  to  enlighten 
man,  let  him  always  have  truth  laid 
before  him.  Instead  of  kindling  his 
Imagination  by  the  idea  of  those  pre- 
tended goods  that  a  future  state  has  in 
reserve  for  him,  let  him  be  solaced,  let 
him  be  succoured ;  or,  at  least,  let  him 
be  permitted  to  enjoy  the  fruit  of  his 
labour;  let  not  his  substance  be  ravaged 
from  him  by  cruel  imposts  ;  let  him  not 
be  discouraged  from  work,  by  finding 
all  his  labour  inadequate  to  support  his 
existence,  let  him  not  be  driven  into 
that  idleness  that  will  surely  lead  him 
on  to  crime :  let  him  consider  his  pre- 
sent existence,  without  carrying  his 
views  to  that  which  may  attend  him 
after  his  death :  let  his  industry  be 
excited  ;  let  his  talents  be  rewarded ; 
let  him  be  rendered  active,  laborious, 
beneficent,  and  virtuous,  in  the  world 
he  inhabits  ;  let  it  be  shown  to  him 
that  his  actions  are  capable  of  having 
an  influence  over  his  fellow  men,  but 
not  on  those  imaginary  beings  located 
in  an  ideal  world.  Let  him  not  be 
menaced  with  the  tortures  of  a  God 
when  he  shall  be  no  more;  let  him 
behold  society  armed  against  those  who 
disturb  its  repose  ;  let  him  see  the  con- 
sequence of  the  hatred  of  his  associaies; 
let  him  learn  to  feel  the  value  of  their 
affection;  let  him  be  taught  to  esteem 
himself;  let  him  understand,  that  to 
obtain  the  esteem  of  others  he  must 
have  virtue ;  above  all,  that  the  virtuous 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,    &c. 


133 


man  in  a  well  constituted  society  has 
nothing  to  fear  either  from  his  fellow 
citizens  or  from  the  Gods. 

If  it  be  de?ired  to  form  honest, 
courageous,  industrious  citizens,  who 
may  be  useful  to  their  country,  let 
them  beware  of  inspiring  man  from  his 
infancy  with  an  ill-founded  dread  of 
death — of  amu =ing  his  imagination  with 
marvellous  fables — of  occupying  his 
mind  with  his  destiny  in  a  future  life, 
quite  useless  to  be  known,  and  which 
has  nothing  in  common  with  his  real 
felicity.  Let  them  speak  of  immortality 
to  intrepid  and  noble  souls ;  let  them 
show  it  as  the  price  of  their  labours  to 
energetic  minds,  who,  springing  forward 
beyond  the  boundaries  of  their  actual 
existence,  are  little  satisfied  with  elicit- 
ing the  admiration  and  with  gaining 
the  love  of  their  contemporaries,  but  are 
determined  also  to  wrest  the  homage, 
to  secure  the  aifection  of  future  races. 
Indeed,  there  is  an  immortality  to  which 
genius,  talents,  virtue,  have  a  just  right 
to  pretend ;  do  not  therefore  let  them 
censure  or  endeavour  to  stifle  so  noble 
a  passion  in  man,  which  is  founded 
upon  his  nature,  and  from  which  society 
gathers  the  most  advantageous  fruits. 

The  idea  of  being  buried  in  total 
oblivion ;  of  having  nothing  in  common 
after  his  death,  with  the  beings  of  his 
species ;  of  losing  all  possibility  of 
again  having  any  influence  over  them, 
is  a  thought  extremely  painful  to  man ; 
it  is  above  all  afflicting  to  those  who 
possess  an  ardent  imagination.  The 
desire  of  immortality,  or  of  living  in 
the  memory  of  his  fellow  men,  was 
always  the  passion  of  great  souls ;  it 
was  the  motive  to  the  actions  of  all 
those  who  have  played  a  great  part  on 
the  earth.  Heroes,  whether  virtuous 
or  criminal,  philosophers  as  well  as 
conquerors,  men  of  genius,  and  men  of 
talents,  those  sublime  personages  who 
have  done  honour  to  their  species,  as 
well  as  those  illustrious  villains  who 
have  debased  and  ravaged  it,  have  had 
an  eye  to  posterity  in  all  their  enter- 
prises, and  have  flattered  themselves 
with  the  hope  of  acting  upon  the  souls 
of  men,  even  when  they  themselves 
should  no  longer  exist.  If  man  in 
general  does  not  carry  his  views  so  far, 
he  is  at  least  sensible  to  the  idea  of 
seeing  himself  regenerated  in  his  chil- 
dren, whom  he  knows  are  destined  to 


survive  him,  to  transmit  his  name,  to 
preserve  his  memory,  and  to  represent 
him  in  society ;  it  is  for  them  that  he 
rebuilds  his  cottage ;  it  is  for  them  that 
he  plants  the  tree  which  his  eyes  will 
never  behold  in  its  vigour;  it  is  that 
they  may  be  happy  that  he  labours. 
The  sorrow  which  imbitters  the  life  of 
those  rich  men,  frequently  so  useless 
to  the  world,  when  they  have  lost  the 
hope  of  continuing  their  race,  has  its 
source  in  the  fear  of  being  entirely 
forgotten :  they  feel,  that  the  useless 
man  dies  entirely.  The  idea  that  his 
name  will  be  in  the  mouths  of  men ; 
the  thought  that  it  will  be  pronounced 
with  tenderness,  that  it  Avill  be  recol- 
lected with  kindness,  that  it  will  excite 
in  their  hearts  favourable  sentiments, 
is  an  illusion  that  is  useful  and  suitable 
to  flatter  even  those  who  know  that 
nothing  will  result  from  it.  Man  pleases 
himself  with  dreaming  that  he  shall 
have  power ;  that  he  shall  pass  for 
something  in  the  universe,  even  after 
the  term  of  his  human  existence  ;  he 
partakes  by  imagination  in  the  projects, 
in  the  actions,  in  the  discussions  of 
future  ages,  and  would  be  extremely 
unhappy  if  he  believed  himself  entirely- 
excluded  from  their  society.  The  laws 
in  all  countries  have  entered  into  these 
views ;  they  have  so  far  been  willing 
to  console  their  citizens  for  the  neces- 
sity of  dying,  by  giving  them  the  means 
of  exercising  their  will,  even  for  a  long 
time  after  their  death :  this  condescen- 
sion goes  to  that  length,  that  the  dead 
frequently  regulate  the  condition  of  the 
living  during  a  long  series  of  years. 

Every  thing  serves  to  prove  the  desire 
in  man  of  surviving  himself.  Pyra- 
mids, mausoleums,  monuments,  epi- 
taphs, all  show  that  he  is  willing  to 
prolong  his  existence,  even  beyond  his 
decease.  He  is  not  insensible  to  the 
judgment  of  posterity ;  it  is  for  him 
the  philosopher  writes  ;  it  is  to  astonish 
him  that  the  monarch  erects  sumptuous 
edifices,  it  is  his  praises  that  the  great 
man  already  hears  echo  in  his  ears ; 
it  is  to  him  that  the  virtuous  citizen 
appeals  from  prejudiced  or  unjust  con- 
temporaries. Happy  chimera !  Sweet 
illusion !  that  realizes  itself  to  ardent 
imaginations,  and  which  is  calculated 
to  give  birth  to,  and  to  nurture  the 
enthusiasm  of  genius,  courage,  gran- 
deur of  soul,  and  talent ;  its  influence 


134 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,   &c. 


is  sometimes  able  to  restrain  the  ex- 
cesses of  the  most  powerful  men,  who 
are  frequently  very  much  disquieted 
for  the  judgment  of  posterity,  from  a 
conviction  that  this  will,  sooner  or  later, 
avenge  the  living  of  the  foul  injustice 
which  they  have  made  them  suffer. 

No  man,  therefore,  can  consent  to  be 
entirely  effaced  from  the  remembrance 
of  his  fellows;  some  men  have  not  the 
temerity  to  place  themselves  above  the 
judgment  of  the  future  human  species, 
to  degrade  themselves  in  its  eyes. 
Where  is  the  being  who  is  insensible 
to  the  pleasure  of  exciting  the  tears  of 
those  who  shall  survive  him ;  of  again 
acting  upon  their  souls ;  of  once  more 
occupying  their  thoughts  ;  of  exercising 
upon  them  his  power,  even  from  the 
bottom  of  his  grave  ?  Let,  then,  eternal 
silence  be  imposed  upon  those  super- 
stitious and  melancholy  men  who  cen- 
sure a  sentiment  from  which  society 
derives  so  many  real  advantages ;  let 
not  mankind  listen  to  those  passionless 
philosophers,  who  are  willing  to  smother 
this  great,  this  noble  spring  of  his  soul ; 
let  him  not  be  seduced  by  the  sarcasms 
of  those  voluptuaries,  who  pretend  to 
despise  an  immortality  towards  which 
they  lack  the  power  to  set  forward. 
The  desire  of  pleasing  posterity  and 
of  rendering  his  name  agreeable  to 
generations  yet  to  come,  is  a  laudable 
motive,  when  it  causes  him  to  undertake 
those  things  of  which  the  utility  may 
have  an  influence  over  men  and  nations 
who  have  not  yet  an  existence.  Let 
him  not  treat  as  irrational  the  enthu- 
siasm of  those  beneficent  and  mighty 
geniuses,  whose  keen  eyes  have  fore- 
seen him  even  in  their  day  ;  who  have 
occupied  themselves  of  him  for  his 
welfare ;  who  have  desired  his  suffrage ; 
who  have  written  for  him ;  who  have 
enriched  him  by  their  discoveries ;  who 
have  cured  him  of  his  errours.  Let 
him  render  them  the  homage  which 
they  have  expected  at  his  hands;  let 
him  at  least  reverence  their  memory 
for  the  benefits  he  has  derived  from 
them ;  let  him  treat  their  mouldering 
remains  with  respect  for  the  pleasure 
he  receives  from  their  labours  ;  let  him 
pay  to  their  ashes  a  tribute  of  grateful 
recollection  for  the  happiness  they  have 
been  sedulous  to  procure  for  him.  Let 
him  sprinkle  with  his  tears  the  urns  of 
Socrates,  of  Phocion ;  let  him  wash  out 


the  stain  that  their  punishment  has 
made  on  the  human  species ;  let  him 
expiate  by  his  regret  the  Athenian 
ingratitude ;  let  him  learn  by  their 
example  to  dread  religious  and  political 
fanaticism ;  let  him  fear  to  harass  merit 
and  virtue,  in  persecuting  those  who 
may  happen  to  differ  from  him  in  his 
prejudices. 

Let  him  strew  flowers  over  the  tombs 
of  a  Homer,  of  a  Tasso,  of  a  Milton ; 
let  him  revere  the  immortal  shades  of 
those  happy  geniuses,  whose  harmo- 
nious lays  excite  in  his  soul  the  most 
tender  sentiments ;  let  him  bless  the 
memory  of  all  those  benefactors  to  the 
people,  who  were  the  delight  of  the 
human  race ;  let  him  adore  the  virtues 
of  a  Titus,  of  a  Trajan,  of  an  Antoninus, 
of  a  Julian  ;  let  him  merit,  in  his  sphere, 
the  eulogies  of  future  ages  ;  and  let  him 
always  remember,  that  to  carry  with  him 
to  the  grave  the  regret  of  his  fellow  man, 
he  must  display  talents  and  practise 
virtue.  The  funeral  ceremonies  of  the 
most  powerful  monarchs,  have  rarely 
been  wetted  with  the  tears  of  the 
people — they  have  commonly  drained 
them  while  living.  The  names  of 
tyrants  excite  the  horrour  of  those  who 
hear  them  pronounced.  Tremble,  then, 
cruel  kings !  ye  who  plunge  your  sub- 
jects into  misery — who  bathe  them  with 
bitter  tears ;  who  ravage  nations,  Avho 
change  the  fruitful  earth  into  a  barren 
cemetery  ;  tremble  for  the  sanguinary 
traits  under  which  the  future  historian 
will  paint  you  to  generations  yet  unborn : 
neither  your  splendid  monuments,  your 
imposing  victories,  your  innumerable 
armies,  nor  your  sycophant  courtiers, 
can  prevent  posterity  from  insulting 
your  odious  manes,  and  from  avenging 
their  grandfathers  of  your  transcendent 
crimes. 

Not  only  man  sees  his  dissolution  with 
pain,  but  again  he  wishes  his  death  may 
be  an  interesting  event  for  others.  But, 
as  we  have  already  said,  he  must  have 
talents,  he  must  have  beneficence,  he 
must  have  virtue,  in  order  that  those 
who  surround  him  may  interest  them- 
selves in  his  condition,  and  may  give 
regret  to  his  ashes.  Is  it,  then,  sur- 
prising if  the  greater  number  of  men, 
occupied  entirely  with  themselves,  com- 
pletely absorbed  by  their  own  vanity, 
devoted  to  their  own  puerile  objects, 
for  ever  busied  with  the  care  of  grati- 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,   &c. 


1.15 


fying  their  vile  passions,  at  the  expense 
of  their  family  happiness,  unheedful  of 
the  wants  of  a  wife,  unmindful  of  the 
necessity  of  their  children,  careless  of 
the  calls  of  friendship,  regardless  of 
their  duty  to  society,  do  not  by  their 
death  excite  the  sensibilities  of  their 
survivors,  or  that  they  should  be  pre- 
sently forgotten  ?  There  is  an  infinity 
of  monarchs  of  whom  history  does  not 
tell  us  any  thing,  save  that  they  have 
lived.  In  despite  of  the  inutility  in 
which  men  for  the  most  part  pass  their 
existence ;  maugre  the  little  care  they 
bestow  to  render  themselves  dear  to 
the  beings  who  environ  them ;  notwith- 
standing the  numerous  actions  they 
commit  to  displease  their  associates, 
the  self-love  of  each  individual  per- 
suades him  that  his  death  must  be  an 
interesting  occurrence :  shows  him,  we 
may  say,  the  order  of  things  as  over- 
turned at  his  decease.,  O  mortal,  feeble 
and  vain !  Dost  thou  not  know  the 
Sesostrises,  the  Alexanders,  the  Cesars, 
are  dead  ?  Yet  the  course  of  the  uni- 
verse is  not  arrested :  the  demise  of 
those  famous  conquerors,  afflicting  to 
some  few  favoured  slaves,  was  a  subject 
of  delight  for  the  whole  human  race. 
Dost  thou,  then,  foolishly  believe,  that 
thy  talents  ought  to  interest  thy  species, 
and  put  it  into  mourning  at  thy  decease  ? 
Alas !  the  Corneilles,  the  Lockes,  the 
Newtons,  the  Boyles,  the  Harveys,  the 
Montesquieus,  are  no  more  !  Regretted 
by  a  small  uumber  of  friends,  who  have 
presently  consoled  themselves  by  their 
necessary  avocations,  their  death  was 
indifferent  to  the  greater  number  of 
their  fellow  citizens.  Darest  thou,  then, 
flatter  thyself,  that  thy  reputation,  thy 
titles,  thy  riches,  thy  sumptuous  repasts, 
thy  diversified  pleasures,  will  make  thy 
funeral  a  memorable  event !  It  will  be 
spoken  of  by  some  few  for  two  days, 
and  do  not  be  at  all  surprised:  learn 
that  there  have  died  in  former  ages,  in 
Babylon,  in  Sardis,  in  Carthage,  in 
Athens,  in  Rome,  millions  of  citizens, 
more  illustrious,  more  powerful,  more 
opulent,  more  voluptuous  than  thou  art, 
of  whom,  however,  no  one  has  taken 
care  to  transmit  to  thee  even  the  names. 
Be  then  virtuous,  O  man !  in  whatever 
station  thy  destiny  assigns  thee,  and 
thou  shall  be  happy  in  thy  lifetime  ; 
do  thou  good,  and  thou  shall  be  cher- 
ished; acquire  talents,  and  thou  shall 


be  respected;  posterity  shall  admire 
thee,  if  those  talents,  by  becoming 
beneficial  to  their  interests,  shall  bring 
them  acquainted  with  the  name  under 
which  they  formerly  designated  thy 
annihilated  being.  But  the  universe 
will  not  be  disturbed  by  thy  loss ;  and 
when  thou  comest  to  die,  whilst  thy 
wife,  thy  children,  thy  friends,  fondly 
leaning  over  thy  sickly  couch,  shall  be 
occupied  with  the  melancholy  task  of 
closing  thine  eyes,  thy  nearest  neigh- 
bour shall,  perhaps,  be  exulting  with 

Let  not  then  man  occupy  himself 
with  his  future  condition,  but  let  him 
sedulously  endeavour  to  make  himself 
useful  to  those  with  whom  he  lives ; 
let  him,  for  his  own  peculiar  happiness, 
render  himself  dutiful  to  his  parents, 
attentive  to  his  children,  kind  to  his 
relations,  true  to  his  friends,  lenient  to 
his  servants ;  let  him  strive  to  become 
estimable  in  the  eyes  of  his  fellow 
citizens ;  let  him  faithfully  serve  a 
country  which  assures  to  him  his  wel- 
fare ;  let  the  desire  of  pleasing  posterity 
excite  him  to  those  labours  that  shall 
elicit  their  eulogies ;  let  a  legitimate 
self-love,  when  he  shall  be  worthy  of  it, 
make  him  taste  in  advance  those  com- 
mendations which  he  is  willing  to  de- 
serve ;  let  him  learn  to  love  and  esteem 
himself;  but  never  let  him  consent  that 
concealed  vices,  that  secret  crimes,  shall 
degrade  him  in  his  own  eyes,  and  oblige 
him  to  be  ashamed  of  his  own  conduct. 

Thus  disposed,  let  him  contemplale 
his  own  decease  with  the  same  indiffer- 
ence that  it  will  be  looked  upon  by  the 
greater  number  of  his  fellows ;  let  him 
expect  death  with  constancy,  and  wait 
for  it  with  calm  resignation ;  let  him 
learn  to  shake  off  those  vain  terrours, 
with  which  superstition  would  over- 
whelm him  ;  let  him  leave  to  the 
enthusiast  his  vague  hopes ;  to  the 
fanatic  his  madbrained  speculations ; 
to  the  bigot  those  fears  with  which  he 
ministers  to  his  own  melancholy ;  but. 
let  his  heart,  fortified  by  reason,  no 
longer  dread  a  dissolution  that  will 
destroy  all  feeling. 

Whatever  may  be  the  attachment 
man  has  to  life,  whatever  may  be  his 
fear  of  death,  it  is  every  day  seen  that 
habit,  that  opinion,  that  prejudice,  are 
motives  sufficiently  powerful  to  anni- 
hilate these  passions  in  his  breast,  to 


136 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,    &c. 


make  him  brave  danger,  to  cause  him 
to  hazard  his  existence.  Ambition, 
pride,  jealousy,  love,  vanity,  aArarice, 
the  desire  of  glory,  that  deference  to 
opinion  Avhich  is  decorated  with  the 
sounding  title  of  a  point  of  honour, 
have  the  efficacy  to  make  him  shut  his 
eyes  to  danger,  and  to  push  him  on  to 
death ;  vexation,  anxiety  of  mind,  dis- 
grace, want  of  success,  softens  to  him 
its  hard  features,  and  makes  him  regard 
it  as  a  door  that  will  afford  him  shelter 
from  the  injustice  of  mankind :  indi- 
gence, trouble,  adversity,  familiarizes 
him  with  this  death,  so  terrible  to  the 
happy.  The  poor  man,  condemned  to 
labour,  inured  to  privations,  deprived  of 
the  comforts  of  life,  views  its  approach 
with  indifference  ;  the  unfortunate, 
when  he  is  unhappy,  when  he  is  with- 
out resource,  embraces  it  in  despair, 
and  accelerates  its  march  as  soon  as 
he  sees  that  happiness  is  no  longer 
within  his  grasp. 

Man  in  different  ages,  and  in  dif- 
ferent countries,  has  formed  opinions 
extremely  various  upon  the  conduct  of 
those  who  have  had  the  courage  to  put 
an  end  to  their  own  existence.  His 
ideas  upon  this  subject,  as  upon  all 
others,  have  taken  their  tone  from  his 
religious  and  political  institutions.  The 
Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  other  nations, 
which  every  thing  conspired  to  render 
courageous  and  magnanimous,  regarded 
as  heroes  and  as  Gods,  those  who  volun- 
tarily cut  the  thread  of  life.  In  Hin- 
dostan,  the  Brahmin  yet  knows  how 
to  inspire  even  women  with  sufficient 
fortitude  to  burn  themselves  upon  the 
dead  bodies  of  their  husbands.  The 
Japanese  upon  the  most  trifling  occa- 
sion makes  no  kind  of  difficulty  in 
plunging  a  dagger  into  his  bosom. 

Among  the  people  of  our  own  country 
religion  renders  man  less  prodigal  of 
life ;  it  teaches  him  that  his  God,  who 
is  willing  he  should  suffer,  and  who  is 
pleased  with  his  torments,  readily  con- 
sents to  his  being  put  to  a  lingering 
death,  but  not  that  he  should  free  him- 
self from  a  life  of  misery  by  at  once 
cutting  the  thread  of  his  days.  Some 
moralists,  abstracting  the  height  of 
religious  ideas,  have  held  that  it  never 
is  permitted  to  man  to  break  the  con- 
ditions of  the  covenant  that  he  has 
made  with  society.  Others  have  looked 
upon  suicide  as  cowardice,  they  have 


thought  that  it  was  weakness,  that  it 
displayed  pusillanimity,  to  suffer  him- 
self to  be  overwhelmed  with  the  shafts 
of  his  destiny,  and  have  held,  that  there 
would  be  much  more  courage  and  eleva- 
tion of  soul,  in  supporting  his  afflictions 
and  in  resisting  the  blows  of  fate. 

If  nature  be  consulted  upon  this  point, 
it  will  be  found,  that  all  the  actions  of 
man,  that  feeble  plaything  in  the  hands 
of  necessity,  are  indispensable  ;  that 
they  depend  on  causes  which  move  him 
in  despite  of  himself,  and  that  without 
his  knowledge  make  him  accomplish  at 
each  moment  of  his  existence  some  one 
of  its  decrees.  If  the  same  power  that 
obliges  all  intelligent  beings  to  cherish^ 
their  existence,  renders  that  of  man  so 
painful  and  so  cruel  that  he  finds  it 
insupportable,  he  quits  his  species ; 
order  is  destroyed  for  him,  and  he 
accomplishes  a  decree  of  nature  thaf" 
wills  he  shall  no  longer  exist.  This 
nature  has  laboured  during  thousands 
of  years  to  form  in  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  the  iron  that  must  number  his 
days.  » 

If  the  relation  of  man  with  nature  be 
examined,  it  will  be  found  that  his 
engagement  was  neither  voluntary  on 
his  part,  nor  reciprocal  on  the  part  of 
nature  or  God.  The  volition  of  his  will 
had  no  share  in  his  birth ;  it  is  com- 
monly against  his  will  that  he  is  obliged 
to  finish  life ;  and  his  actions  are,  as  we 
have  proved,  only  the  necessary  effects 
of  unknown  causes  which  determine 
his  will.  He  is,  in  the  hands  of  nature, 
that  Avhich  a  sword  is  in  his  own  hands ; 
he  can  fall  upon  it  without  its  being 
able  to  accuse  him  with  breaking  his 
engagements,  or  of  stamping  with  in- 
gratitude the  hand  that  holds  it :  man 
can  only  love  his  existence  on  condition 
of  being  happy ;  as  soon  as  the  entire 
of  nature  refuses  him  this  happiness ; 
as  soon  as  all  that  surrounds  him  be- 
comes incommodious  to  him  ;  as  soon 
as  his  melancholy  ideas  offer  nothing 
but  afflicting  pictures  to  his  imagination, 
he  already  exists  no  longer;  he  is  sus- 
pended in  the  void ;  and  he  may  quit 
a  rank  which  no  longer  suits  him ;  in 
which  he  finds  no  one  interest ;  which 
offers  him  no  protection  ;  and  in  which 
he  can  no  more  be  useful  either  to  him- 
self or  to  others. 

If  the  covenant  which  unites  man  to 
society,  be  considered,  it  will  be  obvious 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,    &c. 


137 


that  every  contract  is  conditional,  must 
be  reciprocal ;  that  is  to  say,  supposes 
mutual  advantages  between  the  con- 
tracting parties.  The  citizen  cannot 
be  bound  to  his  country,  to  his  asso- 
ciates, but  by  the  bonds  of  happiness. 
Are  these  bonds  cut  asunder?  he  is 
restored  to  liberty.  Society,  or  those 
who  represent  it,  do  they  use  him  with 
harshness,  do  they  treat  him  with 
injustice,  do  they  render  his  existence 
painful?  Does  disgrace  hold  him  out 
to  the  finger  of  scorn ;  does  indigence 
menace  him,  in  an  obdurate  world? 
Perfidious  friends,  do  they  forsake  him 
in  adversity  ?  An  unfaithful  wife,  does 
she  outrage  his  heart  ?  Rebellious, 
ungrateful  children,  do  they  afflict  his 
old  age  ?  Has  he  placed  Kis  happiness 
exclusively  on  some  object  which  it  is 
impossible  for  him  to  procure  ?  Chagrin, 
remorse,  melancholy,  despair,  have  they 
disfigured  to  him  the  spectacle  of  the 
universe  ?  In  short,  for  whatever  cause 
it  may  be,  if  he  is  not  able  to  support 
his  evils,  let  him  quit  a  world  which 
from  thenceforth  is  for  him  only  a  fright- 
ful desert :  let  him  remove  himself  for 
ever  from  a  country  he  thinks  no  longer 
willing  to  reckon  him  amongst  the  num- 
ber of  iier  children :  let  him  quit  a  house 
that  to  his  mind  is  ready  to  bury  him 
under  its  ruins :  let  him  renounce  a 
society  to  the  happiness  of  which  he 
caa  no  longer  contribute  ;  which  his 
own  peculiar  felicity  alone  can  render 
dear  to  him.  And  could  the  man  be 
blamed,  who  finding  himself  useless, 
who  being  without  resources  in  the 
town  where  destiny  gave  him  birth, 
should  quit  it  in  his  chagrin  to  plunge 
himself  in  solitude?  Death  is  to  the 
wretched  the  only  remedy  for  despair ; 
the  sword  is  then  the  only  friend — the 
only  comfort  that  is  left  to  the  unhappy  : 
as  long  as  hope  remains  the  tenant  of 
his  bosom ;  as  long  as  his  evils  appear 
to  him  at  all  supportable ;  as  long  as 
he  flatters  himself  with  seeing  them 
brought  to  a  termination ;  as  long  as 
he  finds  some  comfort  in  existence 
however  slender,  he  will  not  consent 
to  deprive  himself  of  life:  but  when 
nothing  any  longer  sustains  in  him  the 
love  of  this  existence,  then  to  live,  is 
to  him  the  greatest  of  evils ;  to  die,  the 
only  mode  by  which  he  can  avoid  the 
excess  of  despair.* 

*  This  has  been  the  opinion  of  many  great 
No.  V.— 18 


That  society  who  lias  not  the_ability, 
or  who  is  not  willing  to  procure  man 
any  one  benefit,  loses  all  its  rights  over 
Him  ;  nature,  when  it  has  rendered  his 
existence  completely  miserable,  has  in 
fact  ordered  him  to  quit  it :  in  dying 
he  does  no  more  than  fulfil  one  of  her 
decrees,  as  he  did  when  he  first  drew 
his  breath.  To  him  who  is  fearless  of 
death,  there  is  no  evil  without  a  remedy ; 
for  him  who  refuses  to  die,  there  yet 
exist  benefits  which  attach  him  to  the 
world  ;  in  this  case  let  him  rally  his 
powers,  let  him  oppose  courage  to  a 
destiny  that  oppresses  him  ;  let  him 
call  forth  those  resources  with  which 
nature  yet  furnishes  him ;  she  cannot 
have  totally  abandoned  him  whilst  she 
yet  leaves  him  the  sensation  of  pleasure, 
and  the  hopes  of  seeing  a  period  to  his 
pains.  As  to  the  superstitious,  there  is 
no  end  to  his  sufferings,  for  he  is  not 
allowed  to  abridge  them.f  His  religion 
bids  him  to  continue  to  groan,  and  for- 
bids his  recurring  to  death,  which  would 
lead  him  to  a  miserable  state  of  exist- 
ence :  he  would  be  eternally  punished 
for  daring  to  anticipate  the  tardy  orders 
of  a  cruel  God,  who  takes  pleasure  in 

men  :  Seneca,  the  moralist,  whom  Lactantius 
calls  the  divine  Pagan,  who  has  been  praised 
equally  by  St.  Austin  and  by  St.  Augustine, 
endeavours  by  every  kind  of  argument  to 
make  death  a  matter  of  indifference  to  man : — 
Malum  est  in  necessitate  vivere  :  sed  in  neces- 
sitate yivere,  necessitas  nulla  est.  Q,uidni 
nnlla  sit  7  Patent  undique  ad  libertatem  viae 
multa?,  breves,  faciles.  Agamus  Deo  gratias, 
quod  nemo  in  vita  teneri  possit. —  V.  Senec. 
Epist.  xii.  Cato  has  always  been  com- 
mended, because  he  would  not  survive  the 
cause  of  liberty, — for  that  he  would  not  live 
a  slave.  Curtms,  who  rode  voluntarily  into 
the  gap  to  save  his  country,  has  always  been 
held  forth  as  a  model  of  heroic  virtue.  Is  it 
not  evident  that  those  martyrs  who  have 
delivered  themselves  up  to  punishment,  have 
preferred  quitting  the  world,  to  living  in  it 
contrary  to  their  own  ideas  of  happiness? 
When  the  fabulous  Samson  wished  to  be 
revenged  on  the  Philistines,  did  he  not  consent 
to  die  with  them  as  the  only  means?  If  our 
country  is  attacked,  do  we  not  voluntarily 
sacrifice  our  lives  in  its  defence  1 

t  Christianity,  and  the  civil  laws  of  Chris- 
tians, are  very  inconsistent  in  censuring  suicide. 
The  Old  Testament  furnishes  examples  in  Sam- 
son and  Eleazar— that  is  to  sav,  in  men  who 
stood  very  high  with  God.  The  Messiah,  or 
the  son  of  the  Christians'  God,  if  it  be  true  that 
he  died  of  his  own  accord,  was  evidently  a 
suicide.  The  same  may  be  said  of  those  peni- 
tents who  have  made  it  a  merit  of  gradually 
destroying  themselves. 


138 


EDUCATION,    MORALS,    «fcc. 


seeing  him  reduced  to  despair,  and  who 
wills  that  man  should  not  have  the 
audacity  to  quit,  without  his  consent, 
the  post  assigned  to  him. 

Man  regulates  his  judgment  on  his 
fellows  only  by  his  own  peculiar  mode 
of  feeling ;  he  deems  as  folly,  he  calls 
delirium,  all  those  violent  actions  which 
he  believes  but  little  commensurate  with 
their  causes,  or  which  appear  to  him 
calculated  to  deprive  him  of  that  happi- 
ness towards  which  he  supposes  a  being, 
in  the  enjoyment  of  his  senses,  cannot 
cease  to  have  a  tendency :  he  treats 
his  associate  as  a  weak  creature  when 
he  sees  him  affected  with  that  which 
touches  him  but  lightly,  or  when  he 
is  incapable  of  supporting  those  evils 
which  his  self-love  flatters  him  he  would 
himself  be  able  to  endure  with  more 
fortitude.  He  accuses  of  madness  who- 
ever deprives  himself  of  life,  for  objects 
that  he  thinks  unworthy  so  dear  a  sacri- 
fice ;  he  taxes  him  with  phrensy,  because 
he  has  himself  learned  to  regard  this  life 
as  the  greatest  blessing.  It  is  thus  that 
he  always  erects  himself  into  a  judge 
of  the  happiness  of  others,  of  their  mode 
of  seeing,  and  of  their  manner  of  feeling. 
A  miser  who  destroys  himself  after  the 
loss  of  his  treasure,  appears  a  fool  in 
the  eyes  of  him  who  is  less  attached  to 
riches ;  he  does  not  feel,  that  without 
money  life  to  this  miser  is  only  a  con- 
tinued torture,  and  that  nothing  in  the 
world  is  capable  of  diverting  him  from 
his  painful  sensations :  he  will  proudly 
tell  you,  that  in  his  place  he  had  not 
done  so  much ;  but  to  be  exactly  in  the 
place  of  another  man,  it  is  needful  to 
have  his  organization,  his  temperament, 
his  passions,  his  ideas ;  it  is  in  fact 
needful  to  be  that  other — to  be  placed 
exactly  in  the  same  circumstances,  to 
be  moved  by  the  same  causes  ;  and  in 
this  case  all  men,  like  the  miser,  Avould 
sacrifice  their  life  after  being  deprived 
of  the  only  source  of  their  happiness. 

He  who  deprives  himself  of  his  exist- 
ence, does  not  adopt  this  extremity,  so 
repugnant  to  his  natural  tendency,  but 
when  nothing  in  this  world  has  the 
faculty  of  rejoicing  him — when  no 
means  are  left  of  diverting  his  afflic- 
tion. His  misfortune,  whatever  it  may 
be,  for  him  is  real ;  his  organization, 
be  it  strong,  or  be  it  weak,  is  his  own, 
not  that  of  another ;  a  man  who  is  sick 
only  in  imagination,  really  suffers,  and 


even  troublesome  dreams  place  him  in 
a  very  uncomfortable  situation.  Thus 
when  a  man  kills  himself,  it  ought  to 
be  concluded,  that  life,  in  the  room  of 
being  a  benefit,  had  become  a  very  great 
evil  to  him ;  that  existence  had  lost  all 
its  charms  in  his  eyes ;  that  the  entire 
of  nature  was  to  him  destitute  of  attrac- 
tion; that  it  no  longer  contained  any 
thing  that  could  seduce  him ;  that  after 
the  comparison  which  his  disturbed 
imagination  had  made  of  existence 
with  non-existence,  the  latter  appeared 
to  him  preferable  to  the  first. 

Many  persons  will  not  fail  to  con- 
sider as  dangerous  these  maxims,  which, 
in  spite  of  the  received  prejudices,  autho- 
rize the  unhappy  to  cut  the  thread  of  life; 
but  maxims  will  never  induce  a  man 
to  adopt  such  a  violent  resolution :  it  is 
a  temperament  soured  by  chagrin,  a 
bilious  constitution,  a  melancholy  habit, 
a  defect  in  the  organization,  a  derange- 
ment in  the  whole  machine,  it  is  in  fact 
necessity,  and  not  reasonable  specula- 
tions, that  breed  in  man  the  design  of 
destroying  himself.  Nothing  invites 
him  to  this  step  so  long  as  reason 
remains  with  him,  or  whilst  he  yet 
possesses  hope — that  sovereign  balm 
for  every  evil.  As  for  the  unfortunate, 
who  cannot  lose  sight  of  his  sorrows, 
who  cannot  forget  his  pains,  who  has 
his  evils  always  present  to  his  mind ; 
he  is  obliged  to  take  counsel  from  these 
alone.  Besides,  what  assistance  or 
what  advantage  can  society  promise  to 
itself  from  a  miserable  wretch  reduced 
to  despair,  from  a  misanthrope  over- 
whelmed with  grief,  from  a  wretch 
tormented  with  remorse,  who  has  no 
longer  any  motive  to  render  himself 
useful  to  others,  who  has  abandoned 
himself,  and  who  finds  no  more  interest 
in  preserving  his  life?  Those  who 
destroy  themselves  are  such,  that  had 
they  lived,  the  offended  laws  must  have 
ultimately  been  obliged  to  remove  them 
from  a  society  which  they  disgraced. 

As  life  is,  commonly,  the  greatest 
blessing  for  man,  it  is  to  be  presumed 
that  he  who  deprives  himself  of  it,  is 
impelled  thereto  by  an  invincible  force. 
It  is  the  excess  of  misery,  the  height  of 
despair,  the  derangement  of  his  brain 
caused  by  melancholy,  that,  urges  man 
on  to  destroy  himself.  Agitated  by 
contrary  impulsions,  he  is,  as  we  have 
before  said,  obliged  to  follow  a  middle 


OF   MAN'S    TRUE   INTEREST. 


139 


course,  that  conducts  him  to  his  death ; 
if  man  be  not  a  free  agent,  in  any  one 
instant  of  his  life,  he  is  again  much  less 
so  in  the  act  by  which  it  is  terminated.* 

It  Avill  be  seen,  then,  that  he  who  kills 
himself,  does  not,  as  it  is  pretended, 
commit  an  outrage  on  nature  or  its 
author.  He  follows  an  impulse  of  that 
nature,  and  thus  adopts  the  only  means 
left  him  to  quit  his  anguish ;  he  goes 
out  of  a  door  which  she  leaves  open  to 
him ;  he  cannot  offend  her  in  accom- 
plishing a  law  of  necessity ;  the  iron 
hand  of  this  having  broken  the  spring 
that  renders  life  desirable  to  him,  and 
which  urged  him  to  self-conservation, 
shows  him  he  ought  to  quit  a  rank  or 
system  where  he  finds  himself  too 
miserable  to  have  the  desire  of  remain- 
ing. His  country  or  his  family  have  no 
right  to  complain  of  a  member  whom 
it  has  no  means  of  rendering  happy, 
and  from  whom  consequently  they  have 
nothing  more  to  hope.  To  be  useful  to 
either,  it  is  necessary  he  should  cherish 
his  own  peculiar  existence  ;  that  he 
should  have  an  interest  in  conserving 
himself;  that  he  should  love  the  bonds 
by  which  he  is  united  to  others ;  that 
he  should  be  capable  of  occupying  him- 
self with  their  felicity.  That  the  suicide 
should  be  punished  in  another  world, 
and  should  repent  of  his  precipitancy, 
he  should  outlive  himself,  and  should 
carry  with  him  into  his  future  residence 
his  organs,  his  senses,  his  memory,  his 
ideas,  his  actual  mode  of  existing,  his 
determinate  manner  of  thinking. 

In  short,  nothing  is  more  useful  for 
society  than  to  inspire  man  with  a 
contempt  for  death,  and  to  banish  from 
his  mind  the  false  ideas  he  has  of  its 
consequences.  The  fear  of  death  can 
never  do  more  than  make  cowards ;  the 
fear  of  its  pretended  consequences  will 
make  nothing  but  fanatics  or  melan- 
choly beings,  who  are  useless  to  them- 
selves and  unprofitable  to  others.  Death 
is  a  resource  that  ought  not  to  be  taken 
away  from  oppressed  virtue,  which  the 
injustice  of  man  frequently  reduces  to 
despair.  If  man  feared  death  less,  he 
would  neither  be  a  slave  nor  super- 

*  Suicide  is  said  to  be  very  common  in 
England,  whose  climate  produces  melancholy 
in  its  inhabitants.  In  that  country  those  who 
kill  themselves  are  looked  upon  as  lunatics ; — 
their  disease  does  not  seem  more  blameable 
than  any  other  delirium. 


stitiou-s ;  truth  would  find  defenders 
more  zealous ;  the  rights  of  mankind 
would  be  more  hardily  sustained ;  errour 
would  be  more  powerfully  opposed ; 
tyranny  would  be  banished  from  na- 
tions :  cowardice  nourishes  it,  fear  per- 
petuates it.  In  fact,  man  can  neither 
be  contented  nor  happy,  whilst  his 
opinions  shall  oblige  him  to  tremble. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Of  Man's  true  Interest,  or  of  the  Ideas  he 
forms  to  himself  of  Hapjnness. — Man  can- 
not be  Happy  without  Virtue. 

UTILITY,  as  has  been  before  observed, 
ought  to  be  the  only  standard  of  the 
judgment  of  man.  To  be  useful,  is  to 
contribute  to  the  happiness  of  his  fellow 
creatures  ;  to  be  prejudicial,  is  to  further 
their  misery.  This  granted,  let  us  ex- 
amine if  the  principles  we  have  hitherto 
established  be  prejudicial  or  advan- 
tageous, useful  or  useless,  to  the  human 
race.  If  man  unceasingly  seeks  after 
his  happiness,  he  can  only  approve  of 
that  which  procures  for  him  his  object, 
or  furnishes  him  the  means  by  which 
it  is  to  be  obtained. 

What  has  been  already  said  will 
serve  in  fixing  our  ideas  upon  what 
constitutes  this  happiness :  it  has  been 
already  shown,  that  it  is  only  continued 
pleasure  ;t  but  in  order  that  an  object 
may  please,  it  is  necessary  that  the 
impressions  it  makes,  the  perceptions 
it  gives,  the  ideas  which  it  leaves,  in 
short,  that  the  motion  it  excites  in  man 
should  be  analogous  to  his  organization, 
conformable  to  his  temperament,  assimi- 
lated to  his  individual  nature :  modified 
as  it  is  by  habit,  determined  as  it  is  by 
an  infinity  of  circumstances,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  the  action  of  the  object  by 
which  he  is  moved,  or  of  which  the 
idea  remains  with  him,  far  from  en- 
feebling him,  far  from  annihilating  his 
feelings  should  tend  to  strengthen  him ; 
it  is  necessary,  that  without  fatiguing 
his  mind,  exhausting  his  faculties  or 
deranging  his  organs,  this  object  should 
impart  to  his  machine  that  degree  of 
activity  for  which  it  continually  has 
occasion.  What  is  the  object  that 
unites  all  these  qualities?  Where  is 
the  man  whose  organs  are  susceptible 


t  See  Chapter  IX. 


140 


OF   MAN'S    TRUE   INTEREST. 


of  continual  agitation  without  being 
fatigued,  without  experiencing  a  pain~ 
ful  sensation,  without  sinking  ?  Man 
is  always  willing  to  be  warned  of  his 
existence  in  the  most  lively  manner, 
as  long  as  he  can  be  so  without  pain. 
What  do  I  say  ?  He  consents  fre- 
quently to  suffer,  rather  than  not  feel. 
He  accustoms  himself  to  a  thousand 
things,  which  at  first  must  have  affected 
nim  in  a  disagreeable  manner,  and 
which  frequently  end,  either  by  con- 
verting themselves  into  wants,  or  by 
no  longer  affecting  him  any  way.* 
Where,  indeed,  can  he  always  find 
objects  in  nature  capable  of  continually 
supplying  the  stimulus  requisite  to  keep 
him  in  an  activity  that  shall  be  ever 
proportioned  to  the  state  of  his  own 
organization,  which  his  extreme  mo- 
bility renders  subject  to  perpetual  vari- 
ation 1  The  most  lively  pleasures  are 
always  the  least  durable,  seeing  they 
are  those  which  exhaust  him  most. 

That  man  should  be  uninterruptedly 
happy,  it  would  be  requisite  that  his 
powers  were  infinite ;  it  would  require, 
that,  to  his  mobility  he  joined  a  vigour, 
a  solidity,  which  nothing  could  change ; 
or  else  it  is  necessary  that  the  objects 
from  which  he  receives  impulse  should 
either  acquire  or  lose  properties,  accord- 
ing to  the  different  states  through  which 
his  machine  is  successively  obliged  to 
pass ;  it  would  need  that  the  essences 
of  beings  should  be  changed  in  the 
same  proportion  as  his  dispositions, 
and  should  be  submitted  to  the  con- 
tinual influence  of  a  thousand  causes, 
which  modify  him  without  his  know- 
ledge, and  in  despite  of  himself.  If, 
at  each  moment  his  machine  undergoes 
changes,  more  or  less  marked,  which 
are  ascribable  to  the  different  degrees 
of  elasticity,  of  density,  of  serenity  of 
the  atmosphere,  to  the  portion  of  igneous 
fluid  circulating  through  his  blood,  to 


*  Of  this  truth,  tobacco,  coffee,  and  above 
all,  brandy,  furnish  examples.  It  was  this  last 
•which  enabled  the  Europeans  to  enslave  the 
negro  and  to  subdue  the  savage.  This  is  also 
the  reason  man  runs  to  see  tragedies  and  to 
witness  the  execution  of  criminals.  In  short, 
the  desire  of  feeling,  or  of  being  powerfully 
moved,  appears  to  be  the  principle  of  curiosity — 
of  that  avidity  with  which  we  seize  on  the 
marvellous,  the  supernatural,  the  incompre- 
hensible, and  on  every  thing  that  excites  the 
imagination.  Men  cling  to  their  religions  as 
the  savage  does  to  brandy. 


the  harmony  of  his  organs,  to  the  order 
that  exists  between  the  various  parts 
of  his  body ;  if,  at  every  period  of  his 
existence,  his  nerves  have  not  the  same 
tensions,  his  fibres  the  same  elasticity, 
his  mind  the  same  activity,  his  imagi- 
nation the  same  ardour,  &c.,  it  is  evi- 
dent, that  the  same  causes  in  preserving 
to  him  only  the  same  qualities,  cannot 
always  affect  him  in  the  same  manner. 
Here  is  the  reason  why  those  objects 
that  please  him  in  one  season  displease 
him  in  another:  these  objects  have  nof 
themselves  sensibly  changed,  but  his 
organs,  his  dispositions,  his  ideas,  his 
mode  of  seeing,  his  manner  of  feeling, 
have  changed ;  such  is  the  source  of 
man's  inconstancy. 

If  the  same  objects  a-re  not  constantly 
in  that  state  competent  to  form  the  hap- 
piness of  the  same  individual,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  that  they  are  yet  less  in  a 
capacity  to  please  all  men  ;  or  that  the 
same  happiness  cannot  be  suitable  to 
all.  Beings  already  various  by  their 
temperament,  their  faculties,  then; 
organization,  their  imagination,  their 
ideas,  of  distinct  opinions,  of  contrary 
habits,  which  an  infinity  of  circum- 
stances, whether  physical  or  moral, 
have  variously  modified,  must  neces-. 
sarily  form  very  different  notions  of 
happiness.  Those  of  a  miser  cannot 
be  the  same  as  those  of  a  prodigal ; 
those  of  the  voluptuary,  the  same  as 
those  of  one  who  is  phlegmatic  ;  those 
of  an  intemperate,  the  same  as  those 
of  a  rational  man  who  husbands  his 
health.  The  happiness  of  each  is  in 
consequence  composed  of  his  natural 
organization,  and  of  those  circum- 
stances, of  those  habits,  of  those  ideas, 
Avhether  true  or  false,  that  have  modi- 
fied him  :  this  organization  and  these 

!  circumstances  never  being  the  same  in 
any  two  men,  it  follows  that  what  is 
the  object  of  one  man's  views,  most  be 

I  indifferent  or  even  displeasing  to  an- 

j  other  ;  thus,  as  we  have  before  said, 
no  one  can  be  capable  of  judging  of 

:  that  which  may  contribute  to  the  feli- 
city of  his  fellow  man. 

Interest,  is  the  object  to  which  each 

I  individual,  according  to  his   tempera- 

|  ment  and  his  own  peculiar  ideas, 
attaches  his  welfare ;  from  which  it 

i  will  be  perceived,  that  this  interest  is 
never  more  than  that  which  each  con- 
templates as  necessary  to  his  happiness. 


OF  MAN'S  TRUE  INTEREST. 


141 


It  must,  therefore,  be  concluded,  that 
no  man  is  totally  without  interest* 
That  of  the  miser,  .is  to  amass  wealth; 
that  of  the  prodigal,  to  dissipate  it ;  the 
interest  of  the  ambitious,  is  to  obtain 
power ;  that  of  the  modest  philosopher, 
to  enjoy  tranquillity  :  the  interest  of  the 
debauchee,  is  to  give  himself  up  with- 
out reserve  to  all  sorts  of  pleasure  5  that 
of  the  prudent  man,  to  abstain  from 
those  which  may  injure  him :  the  inter- 
est of  the  wicked,  is  to  gratify  his  pas- 
sions at  any  price:  that  of  the  virtuous, 
to  merit  .by  his  conduct  the  love  and 
the  approbation  of  others ;  to  do  nothing 
that  can  degrade  himself  in  his  own 
eyes. 

Thus,  when  it  is  said,  that  interest 
is  the  only  motive  of  human  actions, 
it  is  meant  to  indicate,  that  each  man 
labours  after  his  own  manner  to  his 
OWE  peculiar  happiness,  which  he  pla- 
ces to  some  object,  either  visible  or  con- 
cealed, either  real  or  imaginary,  and 
that  the  whole  system  of  his  conduct 
is  directed  to  its  attainment.  This 
granted,  no  man  can  be  called  disinter- 
ested ;  this  appellation  is  only  applied 
to  those  of  whose  motives  we  are  ignor- 
ant, or  whose  interest  we  approve. 
Thus,  the  man  who  finds  a  greater 
pleasure  in  assisting  his  friends  in  mis- 
fortune, than  preserving  in  his  coffers 
useless  treasure,  is  called  generous, 
faithful. and  disinterested :  in  like  man- 
ner all  men  are  denominated  disinter- 
ested, who  feel  their  glory  far  more 
precious  than  their  fortune.  In  short, 
all  men  are  designated  disinterested, 
who  place  their  happiness  in  making 
sacrifices  which  man  considers  costly, 
because  he  does  not  attach  the  same 
value  to  the  object  for  which  the  sacri- 
fice is  made. 

Man  frequently  judges  very  errone- 
ously of  the  interest  of  others,  either 
because  the  motives  that  animate  them 
are  too  complicated  for  him  to  unravel ; 
or,  because  to  be  enabled  to  judge  of 
them  fairly,  it  is  needful  to  have  the 
same  eyes,  the  same  organs,  the  same 
passions,  the  same  opinions:  neverthe- 
less, obliged  to  form  his  judgment  of 
the  actions  of  mankind  by  their  effect 
on  himself,  he  approves  the  interest  that 
actuates  them,  whenever  the  result  is 
advantageous  for  his  species :  thus,  he 
admires  valour,  generosity,  the  love  of 
liberty,  great  talents,  virtue,  &c.,  he  then 


only  approves  of  the  objects,  in  which 
the  beings  he  applauds,  have  placed 
their  happiness  ;  he  approves  these  dis- 
positions even  when  he  is  not  in  a  ca- 
pacity to  feel  their  effects  ;  but  in  this 
judgment  he  is  not  himself  disinterest- 
ed ;  experience,  reflection,  habit,  reason, 
have  given  him  a  taste  for  morals,  and 
he  finds  as  much  pleasure  in  being  wit- 
ness to  a  great  and  generous  action,  as 
the  man  of  virtu  finds  in  the  sight  of  a 
fine  picture  of  which  he  is  not  the  pro- 
prietor. He  who  has  formed  to  himself 
a  habit  of  practising  virtue,  is  a  man 
who  has  unceasingly  before  his  eyes 
the  interest  that  he  has  in  meriting  the 
affection,  in  deserving  the  esteem,  in 
securing  the  assistance  of  others,  as 
well  as  to  love  and  esteem  himself: 
impressed  with  these  ideas,  which  have 
become  habitual  to  him,  he  abstains 
even  from  concealed  crimes,  since  these 
would  degrade  him  in  his  own  eyes : 
he  resembles  a  man,  who  having  from 
his  infancy  contracted  a  habit  of  clean- 
liness, would  be  painfully  affected  at 
seeing  himself  dirty,  even  when  no  one 
should  witness  it.  The  honest  man  is 
he  to  whom  truth  has  shown  his  inter- 
est or  his  happiness  in  a  mode  of  acting 
that  others  are  obliged  to  love  and  to 
approve  for  their  own  peculiar  interest. 
These  principles,  duly  developed,  are 
the  true  basis  of  morals;  nothing  is 
more  chimerical  than  those  which  are 
founded  upon  imaginary  motives,  pla- 
ced out  of  nature ;  or  upon  innate  sen- 
timents, which  some  speculators  have 
regarded  as  anterior  to  man's  experi- 
ence, and  as  wholly  independent  of 
those  advantages  which  result  to  him 
from  its  use :  it  is  the  essence  of  man 
to  love  himself:  to  tend  to  his  own 
conservation ;  to  seek  to  render  his  ex- 
istence happy  ;*  thus  interest,  or  the 
desire  of  happiness,  is  the  only  real 
motive  of  all  his  actions ;  this  interest; 
depends  upon  his  natural  organization, 
his  wants,  his  acquired  ideas,  the  habits, 
he  has  contracted ;  he  is  without  doubt 
in  errour,  when  either  a  vitiated  organ- 
ization or  false  opinions  show  him  his 
welfare  in  objects  either  useless  or  in- 
jurious to  himself,  as  well  as  to  others  ; 
he  marches  steadily  in  the  paths  of  vir- 


*  Seneca  says  :  Modus  ergo  diligendi  prae- 
cipiendus  est  hpmini,  id  est  quomodo  so  dili- 
gat  aut  prosit  sibi ;  quin  autem  diligat  aut  pro- 
sit sibi,  dubitare  dementis  est. 


142 


OF  MAN'S  TRUE  INTEREST. 


tue,  when  true  ideas  have  made  him 
rest  his  happiness  on  a  conduct  useful 
to  nis  species,  approved  by  others,  and 
which  renders  him  an  interesting  object 
to  his  associates.  Morals  would  be  a 
vain  science,  if  it  did  not  incontestably 
prove  to  man  that  his  interest  consists 
in  being  virtuous.  Obligation,  of  what- 
ever kind,  can  only  be  founded  upon  the 
probability  or  the  certitude  of  either  ob- 
taining a  good  or  avoiding  an  evil. 

Indeed,  in  no  one  instant  of  his  dura- 
tion, can  a  sensible  and  intelligent  be- 
ing either  lose  sight  of  his  own  preser- 
vation or  forget  his  own  welfare;  he 
owes  happiness  to  himself;  but  experi- 
ence quickly  proves  to  him,  that  be- 
reaved of  assistance,  he  cannot  alone 
procure  all  those  objects  which  are  re- 
quisite to  his  felicity :  he  lives  with 
sensible,  with  intelligent  beings,  occu- 
pied like  himself  with  their  own  pe- 
culiar happiness,  but  capable  of  assist- 
ing him  in  obtaining  those  objects  he 
most  desires ;  he  discovers  that  these 
beings  will  not  be  favourable  to  his 
views,  but  Avhen  they  find  their  interest 
involved ;  from  which  he  concludes, 
that  his  own  happiness  demands  that 
he  should  conduct  himself  at  all  times 
in  a  manner  suitable  to  conciliate  the 
attachment,  to  obtain  the  approbation, 
to  elicit  the  esteem,  to  secure  the  assist- 
ance of  those  beings  who  are  most  ca- 
pacitated to  further  his  designs.  He 
perceives  that  it  is  man  who  is  most 
necessary  to  the  welfare  of  man,  and 
that  to  induce  him  to  join  in  his  inter- 
ests, he  ought  to  make  him  find  real 
advantages  in  seconding  his  projects : 
but  to  procure  real  advantages  to  the 
beings  of  the  human  species,  is  to  have 
virtue ;  the  reasonable  man,  therefore, 
is  obliged  to  feel  that  it  is  his  interest 
to  be  virtuous.  Virtue  is  only  the  art 
of  rendering  himself  happy,  by  the  feli- 
city of  others.  The  virtuous  man  is  he 
who  communicates  happiness  to  those 
beings  who  are  capable  of  rendering 
his  own  condition  happy,  who  are  ne- 
cessary to  his  conservation,  who  have 
the  ability  to  procure  him  a  felicitous 
existence. 

Such,  then,  is  the  true  foundation  of 
all  morals ;  merit  and  virtue  are  found- 
ed upon  the  nature  of  man ;  have  their 
dependance  upon  his  wants.  It  is  vir- 
tue, alone,  that  can  render  him  truly 


happy  :*  without  virtue,  society  can 
neither  be  useful  nor  indeed  subsist;  it 
can  only  have  real  utility  when  it  as- 
sembles beings  animated  with  the  de-: 
sire  of  pleasing  each  other,  and  disposed 
to  labour  to  their  reciprocal  advantage  : 
there  exists  no  comfort  in  those  fami- 
lies whose  members  are  not  in  the  hap- 
py disposition  to  lend  each  other  mutual 
succours ;  who  have  not  a  reciprocity 
of  feeling  that  stimulates  them  to  assist 
one  the  other;  that  induces  them  to 
cling  to  each  other,  to  support  the  sor- 
rows of  life ;  to  unite  their  efforts  to 
put  away  those  evils  to  which  nature 
has  subjected  them.  The  conjugal 
bonds  are  sweet  only  in  proportion  as 
they  identify  the  interest  of  two  beings, 
united  by  the  want  of  legitimate  pleas- 
ure, from  whence  results  the  mainte- 
nance of  political  society,  and  the 
means  of  furnishing  it  with  citizens. 
Friendship  has  charms,  only  when  it 
more  particularly  associates  two  virtu- 
ous beings ;  that  is  to  say,  two  beings 
animated  with  the  sincere  desire  of  con- 
spiring to  their  reciprocal  happiness. 
In  short,  it  is  only  by  displaying  virtue 
that  man  can  merit  the  benevolence,  the 
confidence,  the  esteem,  of  all  those  with 
whom  he  has  relation ;  in  a  word,  no 
man  can  be  independently  happy. 

Indeed,  the  happiness  of  each  human 
individual  depends  on  those  sentiments 
to  which  he  gives  birth,  on  those  feel- 
ings which  he  nourishes  in  the  beings 
amongst  whom  his  destiny  has  placed 
him ;  grandeur  may  dazzle  them;  power 
and  force  may  wrest  from  them  an  in- 
voluntary homage ;  opulence  may  se- 
duce mean  and  venal  souls;  but  it  is 
humanity,  it  is  benevolence,  it  is  com- 
passion, it  is  equity,  that,  unassisted  by 
these,  can  without  efforts  obtain  for  him 
those  delicious  sentiments  of  attach- 
ment, of  tenderness,  of  esteem,  of  which 
all  reasonable  men  feel  the  necessity. 
To  be  virtuous,  then,  is  to  place  his  in- 
terest in  that  which  accords  with  the 
interest  of  others ;  it  is  to  enjoy  those 
benefits  and  that  pleasure  which  he 
himself  diffuses  over  his  fellows.  He, 
whom  his  nature,  his  education,  his  re- 
flections, his  habits,  have  rendered  sus- 


*  Est  autem  virtus  nihil  aliud  qtiam  in  ae 
perfecta  et  ad  summum  perducta  natura.. — 
Cicero.  De  Legibus  1.    He  says  elsewhere 
Virtus  rationis  absolutio  definitur. 


OF  MAN'S  TRUE  INTEREST. 


143 


ceptible  of  these  dispositions,  and  to 
whom  his  circumstances  have  given 
him  the  faculty  of  gratifying  them,  be- 
comes an  interesting  object  to  all  those 
who  approach  him :  he  enjoys  every 
instant;  he  reads  with  satisfaction  the 
contentment  and  the  joy  which  he  has 
diffused  over  all  countenances:  his 
wife,  his  children,  his  friends,  his  ser- 
vants, greet  him  with  gay  and  serene 
faces,  indicative  of  that  content  and  of 
that  peace  which  he  recognises  for  his 
own  work:  every  thing  that  environs 
him  is  ready  to  partake  his  pleasures 
and  to  share  his  pains ;  cherished,  re- 
spected, looked  up  to  by  others,  every 
thing  conducts  him  to  agreeable  reflec- 
tions :  he  knows  the  rights  he  has  ac- 
quired over  their  hearts ;  he  applauds 
himself  for  being  the  source  of  a  felicity 
that  captivates  all  the  world  ;  his  own 
condition,  his  sentiments  of  self-love, 
become  a  hundred  times  more  delicious 
when  he  sees  them  participated  by  all 
those  with  whom  his  destiny  has  con- 
nected him.  The  habit  of  virtue  creates 
for  him  no  wants  but  those  which  vir- 
tue itself  suffices  to  satisfy ;  it  is  thus 
that  virtue  is  always  its  own  peculiar 
reward,  that  it  remunerates  itself  with 
all  the  advantages  it  incessantly  pro- 
cures for  others. 

It  will  be  said,  and  perhaps  even 
proved,  that  under  the  present  constitu- 
tion of  things,  virtue,  far  from  procuring 
the  welfare  of  those  who  practise  it, 
frequently  plunges  man  into  misfortune, 
and  often  places  continual  obstacles  to 
his  felicity ;  that  almost  every  where  it 
is  without  recompense.  What  do  I  say  ? 
A  thousand  examples  could  be  adduced 
as  evidence  that  in  almost  every  coun- 
try it  is  hated,  persecuted,  obliged  to 
lament  the  ingratitude  of  human  nature. 
I  reply,  with  avowing,  that  by  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  wanderings 
and  errours  of  his  race,  virtue  rarely 
conducts  man  to  those  objects  in  which 
the  uninformed  make  their  happiness 
consist.  The  greater  number  of  socie- 
ties, too  frequently  ruled  by  those  whose 
ignorance  makes  them  abuse  their  pow- 
er, whose  prejudices  render  them  the 
enemies  of  virtue,  Avho  flattered  by  sy- 
cophants, secure  in  the  impunity  their 
actions  enjoy,  commonly  lavish  their 
esteem,  bestow  their  kindness  on  none 
but  the  most  unworthy  objects,  reward 
only  the  most  frivolous,  recompense 


none  but  the  most  prejudicial  qualities : 
and  hardly  ever  accord  that  justice  to 
merit  which  is  unquestionably  its  due. 
But  the  truly  honest  man  is  neither  am 
bilious  of  remuneration,  nor  sedulous 
of  the  suffrages  of  a  society  thus  badly 
constituted :  contented  with  domestic 
happiness,  he  seeks  not  to  augment  re- 
lations which  would  do  no  more  than 
increase  his  danger;  he  knows  that  a 
vitiated  community  is  a  whirlwind,  with 
Avhich  an  honest  man  cannot  co-order 
himself;  he  therefore  steps  aside,  quits 
the  beaten  path,  by  continuing  in  which 
he  would  infallibly  be  crushed.  He 
does  all  the  good  of  which  he  is  capa- 
ble in  his  sphere ;  he  leaves  the  road 
free  to  the  wicked,  who  are  willing  to 
wade  through  its  mire ;  he  laments  the 
heavy  strokes  they  inflict  on  them- 
selves ;  he  applauds  the  mediocrity 
that  affords  him  security;  he  pities 
those  nations  made  miserable  by  their 
errours ;  rendered  unhappy  by  those 
passions  which  are  the  fatal  but  neces- 
sary consequence ;  he  sees  they  contain 
nothing  but  wretched  citizens,  who  far 
from  cultivating  their  true  interest,  far 
from  labouring  to  their  mutual  felicity, 
far  from  feeling  the  real  value  of  virtue, 
unconscious  how  dear  it  ought  to  be 
to  them,  do  nothing  but  either  openly 
attack  or  secretly  injure  it ;  in  short, 
who  detest  a  quality  which  would  re- 
strain their  disorderly  propensities. 

In  saying  that  virtue  is  its  own  pe- 
culiar reward,  it  is  simply  meant  to  an- 
nounce, that,  in  a  society  whose  views 
were  guided  by  truth,  by  experience, 
and  by  reason,  each  individual  would 
be  acquainted  with  his  real  interests, 
would  understand  the  true  end  of  asso- 
ciation, would  have  sound  motives  to 
perform  his  duties,  and  find  real  advan- 
tages in  fulfilling  them ;  in  fact,  would 
be  convinced  that  to  render  himself  sol- 
idly happy,  he  should  occupy  his  ac- 
tions with  the  welfare  of  his  fellows, 
and  by  their  utility,  merit  their  esteem, 
their  kindness,  and  their  assistance.  In 
a  well  constituted  society,  the  govern- 
ment, the  lawsj  education,  example, 
would  all  conspire  to  prove  to  the  citi- 
zen, that  the  nation  of  which  he  forms 
a  part  is  a  whole  that  cannot  be  happy 
that  cannot  subsist  without  virtue ;  ex- 
perience would,  at  each  step,  convince 
him  that  the  welfare  of  its  parts  can 
only  result  from  that  of  the  whole  body 


144 


OP  MAN'S  TRUE  INTEREST. 


Corporate ;  justice  would  make  him  feel, 
that  no  society  can  be  advantageous  to 
.its  members  where  the  volition  of  wills 
in  those  who  act,  is  not  so  conformable 
to  the  interests  of  the  whole,  as  to  pro- 
duce an  advantageous  reaction. 

But,  alas  !  by  the  confusion  which 
the  errours  of  man  have  carried  into  his 
ideas,  virtue,  disgraced,  banished  and 
persecuted,  finds  not  one  of  those  ad- 
vantages it  has  a  right  to  expect ;  man 
is  indeed  shown  those  pretended  re- 
wards for  it  in  a  future  life,  of  which 
he  is  almost  always  deprived  in  his  ac- 
tual existence.  It  is  thought  necessary 
to  deceive,  to  seduce,  to  intimidate  him, 
in  order  to  induce  him  to  follow  that 
virtue  which  every  thing  renders  in- 
commodious to  him  ;  he  is  fed  with  dis- 
tant hopes,  in  order  to  solicit  him  to 
practise  virtue,  while  contemplation  of 
the  world  makes  it  hateful  to  him ;  he 
is  alarmed  by  remote  terrours  to  deter 
him  from  committing  evil,  which  all 
-conspires  to  render  amiable  and  neces- 
sary. It  is  thus  that  politics  and  su- 
perstition, by  the  formation  of  chime- 
ras, by  the  creation  of  fictitious  inter- 
ests, pretend  to  supply  those  true  and 
real  motives  which  nature  furnishes, 
which  experience  points  out,  which  an 
enlightened  government  should  hold 
forth,  which  the  law  ought  to  enforce, 
which  instruction  should  sanction, 
which  example  should  encourage, 
which  rational  opinions  would  render 
pleasant.  Man,  blinded  by  his  pas- 
sions, not  less  dangerous  than  neces- 
sary, led  away  by  precedent,  authorized 
by  custom,  enslaved  by  habit,  pays  no 
attention  to  these  uncertain  promises 
and  menaces ;  the  actual  interest  of  his 
immediate  pleasures,  the  force  of  his 
passions,  the  inveteracy  of  his  habits, 
always  rise  superior  to  the  distant  in- 
terests pointed  out  in  his  future  wel- 
fare, or  the  remote  evils  with  which  he 
is  threatened,  which  always  appear 
doubtful  whenever  he  compares  them 
with  present  advantages. 

Thus  superstition,  far  from  making 
man  virtuous  by  principle,  does  nothing 
more  than  impose  upon  him  a  yoke  as 
severe  as  it  is  useless :  it  is  borne  by 
none  but  enthusiasts,  or  by  the  pusillan- 
imous, who,  Avithout  becoming  better, 
tremblingly  champ  the  feeble  bit  put 
into  their  mouth.  Indeed,  experience 
incontestably  proves,  that  religion  is  a 


I  dike  inadequate  to  restrain  the  torrent 
'  of  corruption  to  which  so  many  accu- 
mulated causes  give  an  irresistible 
force :  nay  more,  does  not  this  religion 
i  itself  augment  the  public  disorder,  by 
the  dangerous  passions  which  it  lets 
loose  and  consecrates  ?  Virtue,  in  al- 
most every  climate,  is  confined  to  some 
few  rational  beings,  who  have  sufficient 
strength  of  mind  to  resist  the  stream 
of  prejudice;  Avho  are  contented  by  re- 
munerating themselves  with  the  bene- 
fits they  diffuse  aver  society ;  whose 
temperate  dispositions  are  gratified 
with  the  suffrages  of  a  small  number 
of  virtuous  approvers :  in  short,  who 
are  detached  from  those  frivolous  ad- 
vantages which  the  injustice  of  society 
but  too  commonly  accords  only  to  base- 
ness, to  intrigue,  and  to  crime. 

In  despite  of  the  injustice  that  reigns 
in  the  world,  there  are,  however,  some 
virtuous  men ;  in  the  bosom  even  of  the 
most  degenerate  nations,  there  are  some 
benevolent  beings,  still  enamoured  of 
virtue,  who  are  fully  acquainted  with 
its  true  value,  who  are  sufficiently  en- 
lightened to  know  that  it  exacts  hom- 
age even  from  its  enemies ;  who  are  at 
least  satisfied  with  those  concealed 
pleasures  and  recompenses,  of  which 
no  earthly  power  is  competent  to  de- 
prive them.  The  honest  man  acquires 
a  right  to  the  esteem,  the  veneration, 
the  confidence,  the  love,  even  of  those 
whose  conduct  is  exposed  by  a  contrast 
with  his  own.  In  short,  vice  is  obliged 
to  cede  to  virtue,  of  which  it  blushingly 
acknowledges  the  superiority.  Inde- 
pendent of  this  ascendency  so  gentle, 
so  grand,  so  infallible,  if  even  the  whole 
universe  should  be  unjust  to  him,  there 
yet  remains  to  the  honest  man  the  ad- 
vantage of  loving  his  own  conduct,  of 
esteeming  himself,  of  diving  with  sat- 
isfaction into  the  recesses  of  his  own 
heart,  of  contemplating  his  own  ac- 
tions with  that  delicious  complacency 
that  others  ought  to  do,  if  they  were  not 
hoodwinked.  No  power  is  adequate 
to  ravish  from  him  the  merited  esteem 
of  himself;  no  authority  is  sufficiently 
potent  to  give  it  to  him  when  he  de- 
serves it  not;  but  when  it  is  not  well 
founded  it  is  then  a  ridiculous  senti- 
ment :  it  ought  to  be  censured  when  it 
displays  itself  in  a  mode  that  is  morti- 
fying and  troublesome  to  others ;  it  15 
then  called  arrogance ;  if  it  rest  itselt 


OF  MAN'S  TRUE  INTEREST. 


145 


upon  frivolous  actions,  it  is  called  van- 
ity ;  but  when  it  cannot  be  condemned, 
when  it  is  known  for  legitimate,  when 
it  is  discovered  to  have  a  solid  founda- 
tion, when  it  bottoms  itself  upon  talents, 
when  it  rises  upon  great  actions  that  are 
useful  to  the  community,  when  it  erects 
its  edifice  upon  virtue,  even  though  so- 
ciety should  not  set  these  merits  at  their 
just  price,  it  is  noble  pride,  elevation 
of  mind,  grandeur  of  soul. 

Let  us  not,  then,  listen  to  the  preach- 
ing of  those  superstitions  which,  ene- 
mies to  man's  happiness,  have  been 
desirous  of  destroying  it,  even  in  the 
inmost  recesses  of  his  heart ;  which 
haye  prescribed  to  him  hatred  of  his 
fellows  and  contempt  for  himself; 
which  pretend  to  wrest  from  the  honest 
man  that  self-respect  which  is  frequent- 
ly the  only  reward  that  remains  to  vir- 
tue in  a  perverse  world.  To  annihilate 
in  him  this  sentiment  so  full  of  justice, 
this  love  of  himself,  is  to  break  the 
most  powerful  spring  that  urges  him  to 
act  right.  What  motive,  indeed,  ex- 
cept it  be  this,  remains  for  him  in  the 
greater  part  of  human  societies  ?  Is 
not  virtue  discouraged  and  contemned  ? 
Is  not  audacious  crime  and  cunning 
vice  rewarded  .'  Is  not  love  of  the  pub- 
lic weal  taxed  as  folly  ;  exactitude  in 
fulfilling  duties  looked  upon  as  a  bub- 
ble? Is  not  compassion,  sensibility, 
tenderness,  conjugal  fidelity,  sincerity, 
inviolable  friendship,  treated  with  ridi- 
cule ?  Man  must  have  motives  for  ac- 
tion: he  neither  acts  well  nor  ill,  but 
with  a  view  to  his  own  happiness — to 
that  which  he  thinks  his  interest ;  he 
does  nothing  gratuitously ;  and  when 
reward  for  useful  actions  is  withheld 
from  him,  he  is  reduced  either  to  be- 
come as  abandoned  as  others,  or  else  to 
remunerate  himself  with  his  own  ap- 
plause. 

This  granted,  the  honest  man  can 
never  be  completely  unhappy  ;  he  can 
never  be  entirely  deprived  of  the  recom- 
pense which  is  his  due  ;  virtue  can  am- 
ply make  up  to  him  all  the  happiness  de- 
nied him  by  public  opinion ;  but  nothing 
can  compensate  to  him  the  want  of  vir- 
tue. It  does  not  follow  that  the  honest 
man  will  be  exempted  from  afflictions : 
like  the  wicked,  he  is  subjected  to  phys- 
ical evils ;  he  may  be  worn  down  with 
disease  ;  he  may  frequently  be  the  sub- 
ject of  calumny,  of  injustice,  of  ingrat- 

No.  V.— 19 


itude,  of  hatred ;  but  in  the  midst  of  all 
his  misfortunes,  of  his  sorrows,  he  finds 
support  in  himself,  he  is  contented  with 
his  own  conduct,  he  respects  himself, 
he  feels  his  own  dignity,  he  knows  the 
equity  of  his  rights,  and  consoles  him- 
self with  the  confidence  inspired  by  the 
justness  of  his  cause.  These  supports 
are  not  calculated  for  the  wicked. 
Equally  liable  with  the  honest  man  to 
infirmities  and  to  the  caprices  of  his 
destiny,  he  finds  the  recesses  of  his  own 
heart  filled  with  dreadful  alarms,  cares, 
solicitude,  regret,  and  remorse ;  he  dies 
within  himself;  his  conscience  sustains 
him  not,  but  loads  him  with  reproach; 
and  his  mind,  overwhelmed,  sinks  un- 
der the  storm.  The  honest  man  is  not 
an  insensible  stoic ;  virtue  does  not 
procure  impassibility,  but  if  wretched, 
it  enables  him  to  cast  off  despair ;  if 
infirm,  he  has  less  to  complain  of  than 
the  vicious  being  who  is  oppressed  with 
sickness ;  if  indigent,  he  is  less  unhap- 
py in  his  poverty  ;  if  in  disgrace,  he  is 
not  overwhelmed  by  its  pressure,  like 
the  wretched  slave  to  crime. 

Thus  the  happiness  of  each  indi- 
vidual depends  on  the  cultivation  of  his 
temperament ;  nature  makes  both  the 
happy  and  the  unhappy ;  it  is  culture 
that  gives  value  to  the  soil  nature  has 
formed,  and  instruction  and  reflection 
make  it  useful.  For  man  to  be  happily- 
born,  is  to  have  received  from  nature  a 
sound  body,  organs  that  act  with  pre- 
cision, a  just  mind,  a  heart  whose  pas- 
sions and  desires  are  analogous  and 
conformable  to  the  circumstances  in 
which  his  destiny  has  placed  him.  Na- 
ture, then,  has  done  every  thing  for  him, 
when  she  has  joined  to  these  faculties 
the  quantum  of  vigour  and  energy  suf- 
ficient to  enable  him  to  obtain  those 
things,  which  his  station,  his  mode  of 
thinking,  his  temperament,  have  ren- 
dered desirable.  Nature  has  made  him. 
a  fatal  present,  when  she  has  filled  his 
sanguinary  vessels  with  an  overheated 
fluid,  given  him  an  imagination  too  ac- 
tive, desires  too  impetuous  after  objects 
either  impossible  or  improper  to  be  ob- 
tained under  his  circumstances ;  or 
which  at  least  he  cannot  procure  with- 
out those  incredible  efforts  that  either 
place  his  own  welfare  in  danger  or  dis- 
turb the  repose  of  society.  The  most 
happy  man  is  commonly  he  who  pos- 
sesses a  peaceable  mind,  who  only  de- 


HG 


OF  MAN'S  TRUE  INTEREST. 


sires  those  things  which  he  can  procure 
by  labour  suitable  to  maintain  his  ac- 
tivity, without  causing  shocks  that  are 
either  too  violent  or  troublesome.  A 
philosopher,  whose  wants  are  easily 
satisfied,  who  is  a  stranger  to  ambition, 
who  is  contented  with  the  limited  cir- 
cle of  a  small  number  of  friends,  is, 
without  doubt,  a  being  much  more  hap- 
pily constituted  than  an  ambitious  con- 
queror, whose  greedy  imagination  is 
reduced  to  despair  by  having  only  one 
world  to  ravage.  He  Avho  is  happily 
born,  or  whom  nature  has  rendered 
susceptible  of  being  conveniently  mod- 
ified, is  not  a  being  injurious  to  society  : 
it  is  generally  disturbed  by  men  who 
are  unhappily  born,  whose  organiza- 
tion renders  them  turbulent,  who  are 
discontented  with  their  destiny,  who 
are  inebriated  with  their  own  licentious 
passions,  who  are  smitten  with  difficult 
enterprises,  who  set  the  world  in  com- 
bustion to  gather  imaginary  benefits,  in 
which  they  make  their  own  happiness 
consist.  An  Alexander  requires  the 
destruction  of  empires,  nations  to  be 
deluged  with  blood,  cities  to  be  laid  in 
ashes,  its  inhabitants  to  be  extermina- 
ted, to  content  that  passion  for  glory  of 
which  he  has  formed  to  himself  a  false 
idea,  but  which  his  too  ardent  imagina- 
tion anxiously  thirsts  after  :  for  a  Dio- 
genes there  needs  only  a  tub,  with  the 
liberty  of  appearing  whimsical :  a  Soc- 
rates wants  nothing  but  the  pleasure  of 
forming  disciples  to  virtue. 

Man  by  his  organization  is  a  being 
to  whom  motion  is  always  necessary, 
he  must  therefore  always  desire  it ; 
this  is  the  reason  why  too  much  facility 
in  procuring  the  objects  of  his  search, 
renders  them  quickly  insipid.  To  feel 
happiness,  it  is  necessary  to  make  ef- 
forts to  obtain  it ;  to  find  charms  in  its 
enjoyment,  it  is  necessary  that  the  de- 
sire should  be  whetted  by  obstacles ; 
he  is  presently  disgusted  with  those 
benefits  which  have  cost  him  but  little 
pains.  The  expectations  of  happiness, 
the  labour  requisite  to  procure  it,  the 
varied  and  multiplied  pictures  which 
his  imagination  forms  to  him,  supply 
his  brain  with  that  motion  for  which  it 
has  occasion ;  this  gives  impulse  to  his 
organs,  puts  his  whole  machine  into 
activity,  exercises  his  faculties,  sets  all 
his  springs  in  play ;  in  a  word,  puts  him 
into  that  agreeable  activity,  for  the  want 


of  which  the  enjoyment  of  happiness 
itself  cannot  compensate  him.  Action, 
is  the  true  element  of  the  human  mind  ; 
as  soon  as  it  ceases  to  act,  it  sinks  into 
lassitude.  His  mind  has  the  same  oc- 
casion for  ideas  his  stomach  has  for 
aliment.* 

Thus  the  impulse  given  him  by  de- 
sire is  itself  a  great  benefit ;  it  is  to  the 
mind  what  exercise  is  to  the  body ; 
without  it  he  would  not  derive  any 
pleasure  in  the  aliments  presented  to 
him;  it  is  thirst  that  rentiers  the  pleas- 
ure of  drinking  so  agreeable.  Life  is  a 
perpetual  circle  of  regenerated  desires 
and  wants  satisfied :  repose  is  only  a 
pleasure  to  him  who  labours ;  it  is  a 
source  of  weariness,  the  cause  of  sor- 
row, the  spring  of  vice  to  him  who  has 
nothing  to  do.  To  enjoy  without  in- 
terruption is  not  to  enjoy  any  thing: 
the  man  who  has  nothing  to  desire  is 
certainly  more  unhappy  than  he  who 
suffers. 

These  reflections,  grounded  upon  ex- 
perience, ought  to  prove  to  man  that 
good  as  well  as  evil  depends  on  the  es- 
sence of  things.  Happiness  to  be  felt 
cannot  be  continued.  Labour  is  neces- 
sary to  make  intervals  between  his 
pleasures ;  his  body  has  occasion  for 
exercise  to  co-order  him  with  the  be- 
ings who  surround  him ;  his  heart  must 
have  desires;  trouble  alone  can  give 
him  the  right  relish  of  his  welfare ;  it 
is  this  which  puts  in  the  shadows  to 
the  picture  of  human  life.  By  an  ir- 
revocable law  of  his  destiny,  man  is 
obliged  to  be  discontented  with  his 
present  condition ;  to  make  efforts  to 
change  it ;  to  reciprocally  envy  that  fe- 
licity which  no  individual  enjoys  per- 
fectly. Thus  the  poor  man  envies  the 
opulence  of  the  rich,  although  this  one 
is  frequently  more  unhappy  than  his 
needy  neighbour ;  thus  the  rich  man. 
views  with  pain  the  advantages  of  a 


*  The  advantage  which  philosophers  and 
men  of  letters  have  over  the  ignorant  and  the 
idle,  or  over  those  that  neither  think  nor  study, 
is  owing  to  the  variety  as  well  as  quantity  of 
ideas  furnished  to  the  mind  by  study  anq  re- 
flection. The  mind  of  a  man  who  thinks 
finds  more  delight  in  a  good  book  than  can 
be  obtained  by  all  the  riches  at  the  command 
of  the  ignorant.  To  study  is  to  amass  ideas  ; 
and  the  number  and  combination  of  ideas 
make  that  difference  between  man  and  man 
which  we  observe,  besides  giving  him  an  ad  • 
vantage  over  all  other  animals. 

vl — • 


OF   MAN'S    TRUE   INTEREST. 


147 


poverty  which  he  sees  active,  healthy, 
and  frequently  jocund  even  in  the  bo- 
som of  penury. 

If  man  were  perfectly  contented,  there 
would  no  longer  be  any  activity  in  the 
world ;  it  is  necessary  that  he  should 
desire,  act,  labour,  in  order  that  he  may 
be  happy :  such  is  the  course  of  nature, 
of  which  the  life  consists  in  action. 
Human  societies  can  only  subsist  by 
the  continual  exchange  of  those  things 
in  which  man  places  his  happiness. 
The  poor  man  is  obliged  to  desire  and 
to  labour,  that  he  may  procure  what  he 
knows  is  requisite  to  the  preservation 
of  his  existence;  the  primary  wants 
given  to  him  by  nature,  are  to  nourish 
himself,  clothe  himself,  lodge  himself, 
and  propagate  his  species ;  has  he  sat- 
isfied these?  he  is  quickly  obliged  to 
create  others  entirely  new;  or  rather, 
his  imagination  only  refines  upon  the 
first ;  he  seeks  to  diversify  them ;  he  is 
willing  to  give  them  fresh  zest ;  arrived 
at  opulence,  when  he  has  run  over  the 
whole  circle  of  wants,  when  he  has 
completely  exhausted  their  combina- 
tions, he  falls  into  disgust.  Dispensed 
from  labour,  his  body  amasses  humours ; 
destitute  of  desires,  his  heart  feels  a 
languor;  deprived  of  activity,  he  is 
obliged  to  divide  his  riches  with  beings 
more  active,  more  laborious  than  him- 
self: these,  following  their  own  pecu- 
liar interests,  take  upon  themselves  the 
task  of  labouring  for  his  advantage,  of 
procuring  for  him  means  to  satisfy  his 
wants,  of  ministering  to  his  caprices  in 
order  to  remove  the  languor  that  op- 
presses him.  It  is  thus  the  great,  the 
rich,  excite  the  energies,  the  activity, 
the  industry  of  the  indigent ;  these  la- 
bour to  their  own  peculiar  welfare  by 
working  for  others :  thus  the  desire  of 
ameliorating  his  condition,  renders  man 
necessary  to  his  fellow  man ;  thus 
wants,  always  regenerating,  never  sat- 
isfied, are  the  principles  of  life,  of  activ- 
ity, the  source  of  health,  the  basis  of 
society.  If  each  individual  were  com- 
petent to  the  supply  of  his  own  exigen- 
cies, there  would  be  no  occasion  for 
him  to  congregate  in  society,  but  his 
wants,  his  desires,  his  whims,  place 
him  in  a  state  of  dependance  on  others : 
these  are  the  causes  that  each  individ- 
ual, in  order  to  further  his  own  pecu- 
liar interest,  is  obliged  to  be  useful  to 
those  who  have  the  capability  of  pro- 


curing for  him  the  objects  which  he 
himself  has  not.  A  nation  is  nothing 
more  than  the  union  of  a  great  number 
of  individuals,  connected  with  each 
other  by  the  reciprocity  of  their  wants, 
or  by  their  mutual  desire  of  pleasure ; 
the  most  happy  man  is  he  who  has  the 
fewest  wants,  and  the  most  numerous 
means  of  satisfying  them.* 

In  the  individuals  of  the  human  spe^l 
cies,  as  well  as  in  political  society,  the 
progression  of  wants,  is  a  thing  abso- 
lutely necessary ;  it  is  founded  upon  the 
essence  of  man ;  it  is  requisite  that  the 
natural  wants  once  satisfied,  should  be 
replaced  by  those  which  he  calls  ima- 
ginary, or  wants  of  the  fancy ;  these* 
become  as  necessary  to  his  happiness  as" 
the  first.  Custom,  which  permits  the 
native  American  to  go  quite  naked, 
obliges  the  more  civilized  inhabitant  of 
Europe  to  clothe  himself;  the  poor  man 
contents  himself  with  very  simple  at- 
tire, which  equally  serves  him  for  win- 
ter and  for  summer ;  the  rich  man  de- 
sires to  have  garments  suitable  to  each 
season ;  he  would  experience  pain  if  he 
had  not  the  convenience  of  changing 
his  raiment  with  every  variation  of  his 
climate ;  he  would  be  unhappy  if  the 
expense  and  variety  of  his  costume  did 
not  display  to  the  surrounding  multi- 
tude his  opulence,  mark  his  rank,  an- 
nounce his  superiority.  It  is  thus  habit 
multiplies  the  wants  of  the  wealthy  ;  it 
is  thus  that  vanity  itself  becomes  a  want, 
which  sets  a  thousand  hands  in  motion, 
who  are  all  eager  to  gratify  its  cra- 
vings ;  in  short,  this  very  vanity  pro- 
cures for  the  necessitous  man  the  means 
of  subsisting  at  the  expense  of  his  opu- 
lent neighbour.  He  who  is  accustom- 
ed to  pomp,  who  is  used  to  ostentatious 
splendour,  whose  habits  are  luxurious, 
whenever  he  is  deprived  of  these  insig- 
nia of  opulence  to  which  he  has  attach- 
ed the  idea  of  happiness,  finds  himself 
just  as  unhappy  as  the  needy  Avretch 
who  has  not  wherewith  to  cover  his 
nakedness.  The  civilized  nations  oO 
the  present  day  were  in  their  origin 
savages  composed  of  erratick  tribes, 
mere  wanderers  who  were  occupied 
Avith  war  and  the  chase,  obliged  to  seek 
a  precarious  subsistence  by  hunting  in 


*  The  man  who  would  be  truly  rich,  has  no 
need  to  increase  his  fortune,  it  suffices  he 
should  diminish  his  wants. 


143 


OF   MAN'S    TRUE   INTEREST. 


those  woods  :  in  time  they  have  become 
stationary ;  they  first  applied  them- 
selves to  agriculture,  afterwards  to  com- 
merce; by  degrees  they  have  refined  on 
their  primitive  wants,  extended  their 
sphere  of  action,  given  birth  to  a  thou- 
sand new  wants,  imagined  a  thousand 
new  means  to  satisfy  them;  this  is  the 
natural  and  necessary  progression  of 
active  beings,  who  cannot  live  without 
feeling ;  who,  to  be  happy,  must  of  ne- 
l^essity  diversify  their  sensations. 

In  proportion  as  man's  wants  multi- 
ply, the  means  to  satisfy  them  becomes 
more  difficult;  he  is  obliged  to  depend 
on  a  greater  number  of  his  fellow  crea- 
tures ;  his  interest  obliges  him  to  rouse 
their  activity  to  engage  them  to  concur 
with  his  views,  consequently  he  is  obli- 
ged to  procure  for  them  those  objects 
by  which  they  can  be  excited.  The 
savage  need  only  put  forth  his  hand  to 
gather  the  fruit  he  finds  sufficient  for 
his  nourishment.  The  opulent  citizen 
of  a  flourishing  society  is  obliged  to  set 
numerous  hands  to  work  to  produce  the 
sumptuous  repast  and  to  procure  the  far- 
fetched viands  become  necessary  to  re- 
vive his  languishing  appetite,  or  to  flat- 
ter his  inordinate  vanity.  From  this  it 
will  appear,  that  in  the  same  proportion 
the  wants  of  man  are  multiplied,  he  is 
obliged  to  augment  the  means  to  satisfy 
them.  Riches  are  nothing  more  than 
the  measure  of  a  convention,  by  the  as- 
sistance of  which  man  is  enabled  to 
make  a  greater  number  of  his  fellows 
concur  in  the  gratification  of  his  de- 
sires ;  by  which  he  is  capacitated  to 
invite  them,  for  their  own  peculiar  in- 
terests, to  contribute  to  his  pleasures. 
What,  in  fact,  does  the  rich  man  do, 
except  announce  to  the  needy  that  he 
can  furnish  him  with  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence if  he  consents  to  lend  himself 
to  his  will  ?  What  does  the  man  in 
power  except  show  to  others  that  he  is 
in  a  state  to  supply  the  requisites  to 
render  them  happy  ?  Sovereigns,  no- 
bles, men  of  wealth,  appear  to  be  happy 
only  because  they  possess  the  ability, 
are  masters  of  the  motives,  sufficient  to 
determine  a  great  number  of  individuals 
to  occupy  themselves  with  their  re- 
spective felicity. 

The  more  things  are  considered,  the 
more  man  will  be  convinced  that  his 
false  opinions  are  the  true  source  of  his 
misery  ;  and  the  clearer  it  will  appear 


to  him  that  happiness  is  so  rare  only 
because  he  attaches  it  to  objects  either 
indifferent  or  useless  to  his  welfare,  or 
which,  when  enjoyed,  convert  them- 
selves into  real  evils. 

Riches  are  indifferent  in  themselves, 
it  is  only  by  their  application  that  they 
either  become  objects  of  utility  to  man, 
or  are  rendered  prejudicial  to  his  wel- 
fare. Money,  useless  to  the  savage, 
who  understands  not  its  value,  is 
amassed  by  the  miser,  (to  whom  it  is 
useless)  lest  it  should  be  squandered 
by  the  prodigal  or  by  the  voluptuary, 
who  makes  no  other  use  of  it  than  to 
purchase  infirmities  and  regret.  Pleas- 
ures are  nothing  for  the  man  who  is  in- 
capable of  feeling  them  ;  they  become 
real  evils  when  they  are  too  freely  in- 
dulged ;  when  they  are  destructive  to 
his  health ;  when  they  derange  the 
economy  of  his  machine ;  when  they 
make  him  neglect  his  duties,  and  when 
they  render  him  despicable  in  the  eyes 
of  others.  Power  is  nothing  in  itself; 
it  is  useless  to  man  if  he  does  not  avail 
himself  of  it  to  promote  his  own  pecu- 
liar felicity  :  it  becomes  fatal  to  him  as 
soon  as  he  abuses  it ;  it  becomes  odious 
whenever  he  employs  it  to  render  oth- 
ers miserable.  For.  want  of  being  en- 
lightened on  his  true  interest,  the  man 
who  enjoys  all  the  means  of  rendering 
himself  completely  happy,  scarcely 
ever  discovers  the  secret  of  making 
those  means  truly  subservient  to  his 
own  peculiar  felicity.  The  art  of  en- 
joying is  that  which  of  all  others  is 
least  understood :  man  should  learn 
this  art  before  he  begins  to  desire;  the 
earth  is  covered  with  individuals  who 
only  occupy  themselves  with  the  care 
of  procuring  the  means,  without  ever 
being  acquainted  with  the  end.  All 
the  world  desire  fortune  and  power,  yet 
very  few  indeed  are  those  whom  these 
objects  render  truly  happy. 

It  is  quite  natural  in  man,  it  is  ex- 
tremely reasonable,  it  is  absolutely  ne- 
cessary, to  desire  those  things  which 
can  contribute  to  augment  the  sum  of 
his  felicity.  Pleasure,  riches,  power, 
are  objects  worthy  his  ambition,  and 
deserving  his  most  strenuous  efforts, 
when  he  has  learned  how  to  employ 
them  to  render  his  existence  really 
more  agreeable.  It  is  impossible  to 
censure  him  who  desires  them,  to  de- 
spise him  who  commands  them,  to  hate 


THE  ERROURS  OF   MAN. 


149 


him  who  possesses  them,  but  when  to 
obtain  them  he  employs  odious  means, 
or  when  after  he  has  obtained  them  he 
makes  a  pernicious  u«e  of  them,  inju- 
rious to  himself,  prejudicial  to  others. 
Let  him  wish  for  power,  let  him  seek 
after  grandeur,  let  him  be  ambitious  of 
reputation,  when  he  can  obtain  them 
without  making  the  purchase  at  the 
expense  of  his  own  repose,  or  that  of 
the  beings  with  whom  he  lives :  let 
him  desire  riches,  when  he  knows  how 
to  make  a  use  of  them  that  is  truly  ad- 
vantageous for  himself,  really  benefi- 
cial for  others ;  but  never  let  him  em- 
ploy those  means  to  procure  them  with 
which  he  may  be  obliged  to  reproach 
himself,  or  which  may  draw  upon  him 
the  hatred  of  his  associates.  Let  him  al- 
ways recollect,  that  his  solid  happiness 
should  rest  its  foundations  upon  his 
own  esteem,  and  upon  the  advantages 
he  procures  for  others ;  and  above  all, 
that  ot  all  the  objects  to  which  his 
ambition  may  point,  the  most  imprac- 
ticable for  a  being  who  lives  in  society, 
is  that  of  attempting  to  render  himself 
exclusively  happy. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Err  ours  of  Man,  upon  what  constitutes 
Happin  ss,  the  true  Source  of  his  Evil. — 
Remedies  that  may  be  applied. 

REASON  by  no  means  forbids  man 
from  forming  capacious  desires ;  am- 
bition is  a  passion  useful  to  his  species, 
when  it  has  for  its  object  the  happiness 
of  his  race.  Great  minds  are  desirous 
of  acting  on  an  extended  sphere ;  gen- 
iuses who  are  powerful,  enlightened, 
beneficent,  distribute  very  widely  their 
benign  influence;  they  must  necessa- 
rily, in  order  to  promote  their  own  pe- 
culiar felicity,  render  great  numbers 
happy.  So  many  princes  fail  to  enjoy 
true  happiness,  only  because  their  fee- 
ble, narrow  souls,  are  obliged  to  act  in 
a  sphere  too  extensive  for  their  ener- 
gies :  it  is  thus  that  by  the  supineness. 
the  indolence,  the  incapacity  of  their 
chiefs,  nations  frequently  pine  in  mis- 
ery, and  are  often  submitted  to  masters 
whose  exility  of  mind  is  as  little  cal- 
culated to  promote  their  own  immedi- 
ate happiness,  as  it  is  to  further  that  of 
their  miserable  subjects.  On  the  other 
hand,  minds  too  vehement^  too  much 


inflamed,  too  active,  are  themselves 
tormented  by  the  narrow  sphere  that 
confines  them,  and  their  misplaced  ar- 
dour becomes  the  scourge  of  the  human 
race.*  Alexander  was  a  monarch,  who 
was  as  injurious  to  the  earth,  as  discon- 
tented with  his  condition,  as  the  in- 
dolent despot  whom  he  dethroned. — 
The  souls  of  neither  were  by  any 
means  commensurate  with  their  sphere 
of  action. 

The  happiness  of  man  will  never 
be  more  than  the  result  of  the  harmony 
that  subsists  between  his  desires  and  his 
circumstances.  The  sovereign  power, 
to  him  who  knows  not  how  to  apply  it 
to  the  advantage  of  his  citizens,  is  as 
nothing ;  if  it  renders  him  miserable, 
it  is  a  real  evil ;  if  it  produces  the  mis- 
fortune of  a  portion  of  the  human  race, 
it  is  a  detestable  abuse.  The  most 
powerful  princes  are  ordinarily  such 
strangers  to  happiness,  their  subjects 
are  commonly  so  unfortunate  only  be- 
cause they  first  possess  all  ihe  means 
of  rendering  themselves  happy,  with- 
out ever  giving  them  activity,  or  be- 
cause the  only  knowledge  they  have  of 
them  is  their  abuse.  A  wise  man, 
seated  on  a  throne,  would  be  the  most 
happy  of  mortals.  A  monarch  is  a ' 
man  for  whom  his  power,  let  it  be  of 
whatever  extent,  cannot  procure  other 
organs,  other  modes  of  feeling,  than 
the  meanest  of  his  subjects ;  if  he  has 
an  advantage  over  them,  it  is  by  the 
grandeur,  the  variety,  the  multiplicity 
of  the  objects  with  which  he  can  oc- 
cupy himself,  which,  by  giving  per- 
petual activity  to  his  mind,  can  prevent 
it  from  decay  and  from  falling  into 
sloth.  If  his  mind  is  virtuous  and  ex- 
pansive, his  ambition  finds  continual 
food  in  the  contemplation  of  the  power 
he  possesses  to  unite  by  gentleness  and 
kindness  the  will  of  his  subjects  with 
his  own  ;  to  interest  them  in  his  own 
conservation,  to  merit  their  affections, 
to  draw  forth  the  respect  of  strangers, 
and  to  elicit  the  eulogies  of  all  nations. 
Such  are  the  conquests  that  reason 
proposes  to  all  those  whose  destiny  it 
is  to  govern  the  fate  of  empires:  they 
are  sufficiently  grand  to  satisfy  the 


*  .flSstuat  infelix  augusto  limite  mundi. — 
Seneca  says  of  Alexander,  Post  Darium  and 
Indos  pauper  est  Alexander  ;  inventus  est  qui 
concupiscent  aliquid  post  omnia.  V.  Senec. 
Epist.  120. 


150 


THE  ERROURS  OF  MAN. 


most  ardent  imagination,  to  gratify  the 
most  capacious  ambition.  Kings  are 
the  most  happy  of  men  only  because 
they  have  the  power  of  making  a  great 
number  of  other  men  happy,  and  thus 
of  multiplying  the  causes  of  legitimate 
content  with  themselves. 

The  advantages  of  the  sovereign 
power  are  participated  by  all  those 
who  contribute  to  the  government  of 
states.  Thus  grandeur,  rank,  reputa- 
tion, are  desirable  for  all  who  are 
acquainted  with  all  the  means  of  ren- 
dering them  subservient  to  their  own 
peculiar  felicity ;  they  are  useless  to 
those  ordinary  men,  who  have  neither 
the  energy  nor  the  capacity  to  employ 
them  in  a  mode  advantageous  to  them- 
selves ;  they  are  detestable  whenever 
to  obtain  them  man  compromises  his 
own  happiness  and  the  welfare  of  so- 
ciety :  this  society  itself  is  in  an  er- 
rour  every  time  it  respects  men  who 
only  employ  to  its  destruction  a  power, 
the  exercise  of  which  it  ought  never  to 
approve  but  when  it  reaps  from  it  sub- 
stantial benefits. 

Riches,  useless  to  the  miser,  who  is 
no  more  than  their  miserable  jailer, 
prejudicial  to  the  debauchee,  for  whom 
they  only  procure  infirmities,  disgust, 
and  satiety,  can,  in  the  hands  of  the  hon- 
est man,  produce  unnumbered  means 
of  augmenting  the  sum  of  his  happi- 
ness ;  but  before  man  covets  wealth,  it 
is  proper  he  should  know  how  to  em- 
ploy it ;  money  is  only  a  representative 
of  happiness :  to  enjoy  it  so  as  to  make 
others  happy,  this  is  the  reality.  Mo- 
ney, according  to  the  compact  of  man, 
procures  for  him  all  those  benefits  he 
can  desire  ;  there  is  only  one  which  it 
will  not  procure,  that  is,  the  knowledge 
how  to  apply  it  properly.  For  man  to 
have  money,  without  the  true  secret 
how  to  enjoy  it,  is  to  possess  the  key 
of  a  commodious  palace  to  which  he 
is  interdicted  entrance ;  to  lavish  it 
prodigally,  is  to  throw  the  key  into  the 
river ;  to  make  a  bad  use  of  it,  is  only 
to  make  it  the  means  of  wounding 
himself.  Give  the  most  ample  treas- 
ures to  the  enlightened  man,  he  will 
not  be  overwhelmed  with  them ;  if  he 
has  a  capacious  and  noble  mind  he 
will  only  extend  more  widely  his  be- 
nevolence ;  he  will  deserve  the  affec- 
tion of  a  greater  number  of  his  fellow 
UIPD  ;  he  will  attract  the  love,  and  the 


homage  of  all  those  who  surround 
him;  he  will  restrain  himself  in  his 
pleasures,  in  order  that  he  may  be  en- 
abled truly  to  enjoy  them ;  he  will 
know  that  money  cannot  re-establish  a 
mind  worn  out  with  enjoyment,  enfee- 
bled by  excess  ;  cannot  invigorate  a 
body  enervated  by  debauchery,  from 
thenceforth  become  incapable  of  sus- 
taining him,  except  by  the  necessity  of 
privations ;  he  will  know  that  the  Keen-, 
tiousness  of  the  voluptuary  stifles  pleas- 
ure in  its  source,  and  that  all  the  treas- 
ure in  the  world  cannot  renew  his 
senses. 

From  this  it  will  be  obvious,  that 
nothing  is  more  frivolous  than  the  de- 
clamations of  a  gloomy  philosophy 
against  the  desire  of  power,  the  pur- 
suit of  grandeur,  the  acquisition  of 
riches,  the  enjoyment  of  pleasure. — 
These  objects  are  desirable  for  man, 
whenever  his  condition  permits  him  to 
make  pretensions  to  them,  or  whenever 
he  has  acquired  the  knowledge  of  ma- 
king them  turn  to  his  own  real  ad- 
vantage; reason  cannot  either  censure 
or  despise  him,  when  to  obtain  them 
he  wounds  no  one's  interest :  his  asso- 
ciates will  esteem  him  when  he  em- 
ploys their  agency  to  secure  his  own 
happiness,  and  that  of  his  fellows. 
Pleasure  is  a  benefit,  it  is  of  the  es- 
sence of  man  to  love  it ;  it  is  even  ra- 
tional, when  it  renders  his  existence 
really  valuable  to  himself,  when  its 
consequences  are  not  grievous  to  oth- 
ers. Riches  are  the  symbols  of  the 
great  majority  of  the  benefits  of  this 
life ;  they  become  a  reality  in  the 
hands  of  the  man  who  has  the  clew  to 
their  just  application.  Power  is  the 
most  sterling  of  all  benefits,  when  he 
who  is  its  depositary  has  received  from 
nature  a  mind  sufficiently  noble,  eleva- 
ted, benevolent,  and  energetic,  which 
enables  him  to  extend  his  happy  influ- 
ence over  whole  nations,  which,  by  this 
means,  he  places  in  a  state  of  legitimate 
dependance  on  his  will :  man  only  ac- 
quires the  right  of  commanding  men, 
when  he  renders  them  happy. 

The  right  of  man  over  his  fellow- 
man,  can  only  be  founded,  either  upon 
the  actual  happiness  he  secures  to  him, 
or  that  which  gives  him  reason  to  hope 
he  will  procure  for  him ;  without  this, 
the  power  he  exercises  would  be  vio- 
lence, usurpation,  manifest  tyranny :  it 


THE  ERR;OURS  OP  MAN. 


151 


is  only  upon  the  faculty  of  rendering 
him  happy  that  legitimate  authority 
builds  its  structure.  No  man  derives 
from  nature  the  right  of  commanding 
another  ;  but  it  is  voluntarily  accorded 
to  those  from  whom  he  expects  his 
•welfare.  Government  is  the  right  of 
commanding  conferred  on  the  sove- 
reign, only  for  the  advantage  of  those 
who  are  governed.  Sovereigns  are  the 
defenders  of  the  persons,  the  guardians 
of  the  property,  the  protectors  of  the 
liberty  of  their  subjects  :  it  is  only  on 
this  condition  these  consent  to  obey ; 
government  would  not  be  better  than 
a  robbery  whenever  it  availed  itself  of 
the  powers  confided  to  it  to  render  so- 
ciety unhappy.  The  empire  of  reli- 
"gion  is  founded  on  the  opinion  man 
entertains  of  its  having  power  to  ren- 
der nations  happy  ;  and  the  Gods  are 
horrible  phantoms  if  they  do  render 
man  unhappy.*  Government  and  reli- 
gion, could  be  reasonable  institutions 
only  inasmuch  as  they  equally  contrib- 
uted to  the  felicity  of  man :  it  would 
be  folly  in  him  to  submit  himself  to  a 
yoke  from  which  these  resulted  nothing 
but  evil :  it  would  be  rank  injustice  to 
oblige  him  to  renounce  his  rights,  with- 
out some  corresponding  advantage. 

The  authority  which  a  father  exer- 
cises over  his  family,  is  only  founded 
on  the  advantages  which  he  is  suppos- 
ed to  procure  for  it.  Rank,  in  political 
society,  has  only  for  its  basis  the  real 
or  imaginary  utility  of  some  citizens, 
for  which  the  others  are  willing  to  dis- 
tinguish, respect,  and  obey  them.  The 
rich  acquire  rights  over  the  indigent, 
only  by  virtue  of  the  welfare  they  are 
able  to  procure  them.  Genius,  talents, 
science,  arts,  have  rights  over  man, 
only  in  consequence  of  their  utility,  of 
the  delight  they  confer,  of  the  advan- 
tages they  procure  for  society.  In  a 
word,  it  is  happiness,  it  is  the  expec- 
tation of  happiness,  it  is  its  image,  that 
man  cherishes,  esteems,  and  unceas- 
ingly adores.  Gods  and  monarchs,  the 
rich  and  the  great,  may  easily  impose 

*  Cicero  says — Nisi  homini  placuerit,  Deus 
non  erit.— "  God  cannot  oblige  men  to  obey 
him,  unless  he  proves  to  them  that  he  has  the 
power  of  rendering  them  happy  or  unhappy." 
See  the  Defence  of  Religion,  Vol.  I.  p.  433. 
Prom  this  we  must  conclude  that  we  are  right 
in  judging  of  religion  and  of  the  Gods  by  the 
advantages  or  disadvantages  they  procure  to 
society. 


on  him,  may  dazzle  him,  may  intimi- 
date him,  but  they  will  never  be  able 
to  obtain  the  voluntary  submission  of 
his  heart,  which  alone  can  confer  upon 
them  legitimate  rights,  without  they 
make  him  experience  real  benefits  ami 
display  virtue.  Utility  is  nothing  more 
than  true  happiness ;  to  be  useful  is  to 
be  virtuous ;  to  be  virtuous  is  to  make 
others  happy. 

The  happiness  which  man  derives 
from  them,  is  the  invariable  and  neces- 
sary standard  of  his  sentiments  for  the 
beings  of  his  species,  for  the  objects 
he  desires,  for  the  opinions  he  em- 
braces, for  those  actions  on  which  he 
decides ;  he  is  the  dupe  of  his  preju- 
dices every  time  he  ceases  to  avail  him- 
self of  this  standard  to  regulate  his 
judgment.  He  will  never  run  the  risk 
of  deceiving  himself,  when  he  shall 
examine  strictly  what  is  the  real  utility 
resulting  to  his  species  from  the  reli- 
gion, from  the  laws,  from  the  institu- 
tions, from  the  inventions  and  the  va- 
rious actions  of  all  mankind. 

A  superficial  view  may  sometimes 
seduce  him ;  but  experience,  aided  by 
reflection,  will  re-conduct  him  to  rea- 
son, which  is  incapable  of  deceiving 
him.  This  teaches  him  that  pleasure 
is  a  momentary  happiness,  which  fre- 
quently becomes  an  evil ;  that  evil  is  a 
fleeting  trouble,  that  frequently  be- 
comes a  good :  it  makes  him  under- 
stand the  true  nature  of  objects,  and 
enables  him  to  foresee  the  effects  he 
may  expect ;  it  makes  him  distinguish 
those  desires  to  which  his  welfare  per- 
mits him  to  lend  himself  from  those  to 
whose  seduction  he  ought  to  make  re- 
sistance. In  short,  it  will  always  con- 
vince him,  that  the  true  interest  of  in- 
telligent beings,  who  love  happiness, 
who  desire  to  render  their  own  exist- 
ence felicitous,  demands  that  they 
should  root  out  all  those  phantoms, 
abolish  all  those  chimerical  ideas,  de- 
stroy all  those  prejudices,  which  ob- 
struct their  felicity  in  this  world. 

If  he  consults  experience,  he  will 
perceive  that  it  is  in  illusions  and  opin- 
ions looked  upon  as  sacred,  that  he 
ought  to  search  out  the  source  of  that 
multitude  of  evils,  which  almost  every 
where  overwhelms  mankind.  From 
ignorance  of  natural  causes,  man  has 
created  Gods ;  imposture  rendered  these 
Gods  terrible  to  him;  and  these  fatal 


THE  ERROURS   OF  MAN. 


ideas  haunted  him  without  rendering 
him  better,  made  him  tremble  without 
either  benefit  to  himself  or  to  others ; 
filled  his  mind  with  chimeras,  opposed 
themselves  to  the  progress  of  his  rea- 
son, prevented  him  from  seeking  after 
his  happiness.  His  fears  rendered  him 
the  slave  of  those  who  have  deceived 
him  under  pretence  of  consulting  his 
welfare  ;  he  committed  evil  whenever 
they  told  him  his  Gods  demanded 
crimes ;  he  lived  in  misfortune,  because 
they  made  him  believe  these  Gods  con- 
demned him  to  be  miserable ;  the  slave 
of  these  Gods,  he  never  dared  to  disen- 
tangle himself  from  his  chains,  because 
the  artful  ministers  of  these  Divinities 
gave  him  to  understand,  that  stupidity, 
the  renunciation  of  reason,  sloth  of 
mind,  abjection  of  soul,  were  the  sure 
means  of  obtaining  eternal  felicity. 

Prejudices,  not  less  dangerous,  have 
blinded  man  upon  the  true  nature  of 
government;  nations  are  ignorant  of 
the  true  foundations  of  authority  ;  they 
dare  not  demand  happiness  from  those 
kings  who  are  charged  with  the  care 
of  procuring  it  for  them:  they  have  be- 
lieved that  their  sovereigns  were  Gods 
disguised,  who  received  with  their 
birth,  the  right  of  commanding  the  rest 
of  mankind ;  that  they  could  at  their 
pleasure  dispose  of  the  felicity  of  the 
people,  and  that  they  were  not  ac- 
countable for  the  misery  they  engen- 
dered. By  a  necessary  consequence 
of  these  opinions,  politics  have  al- 
most every  where  degenerated  into 
the  fatal  art  of  sacrificing  the  interests 
of  the  many,  either  to  the  caprice  of 
an  individual,  or  to  some  few  privile- 
ged rascals.  In  despite  of  the  evils 
which  assailed  them,  nations  fell  down 
in  adoration  before  the  idols  they  them- 
selves had  made,  and  foolishly  respect- 
ed the  instruments  of  their  misery  ; 
obeyed  their  unjust  will :  lavished  their 
blood,  exhausted  their  treasure,  sacri- 
ficed their  lives,  to  glut  the  ambition, 
the  cupidity,  the  never-ending  caprices 
of  these  men ;  they  bent  the  knee  to 
established  opinion,  bowed  to  rank, 
yielded  to  title,  to  opulence,  to  pageant- 
ry, to  ostentation:  at  length,  victims  to 
their  prejudices,  they  in  vain  expected 
their  welfare  at  the  hands  of  men  who 
were  themselves  unhappy  from  their 
own  vices,  whose  neglect  of  virtue  had 
rendered  them  incapable  of  enjoying 


true  felicity,  who  were  but  little  dispos- 
ed to  occupy  themselves  with  their 
prosperity :  under  such  chiefs  their 
physical  and  moral  happiness  were 
equally  neglected  or  even  annihilated. 

The  same  blindness  may  be  perceiv- 
ed in  the  science  of  morals.  Religion.''! 
which  never  had  any  thing  but  ignor- 
ance for  its  basis,  and  imagination  for 
its  guide,  did  not  found  ethics  upon 
man's  nature,  upon  his  relations  with 
his  fellows,  upon  those  duties  which 
necessarily  flow  from  these  relations , 
it  preferred  founding  them  upon  ima- 
ginary relations,  which  it  pretended 
subsisted  between  him  and  some  invis- 
ible powers  it  had  gratuitously  imagin- 
ed, and  had  falsely  been  made  to  speak  Jl , 

It  was  these  invisible  Gods  which  re-^ 
ligion  always  paints  as  furious  tyrants, 
who  were  declared  the  arbiters  of  man's 
destiny — the  models  of  his  conduct; 
when  he  was:  willing  to  imitate  thess 
tyrannical  Gods,  when  he  was  willing 
to  conform  himself  to  the  lessons  of 
their  interpreters,  he  became  wicked, 
was  an  unsociable  creature,  a  useless 
being,  or  else  a  turbulent  maniac  and  a 
zealous  fanatic.  It  was  these  alone 
who  profited  by  religion,  who  advan- 
taged themselves  by  the  darkness  in 
which  it  involved  the  human  mind  ; 
nations  were  ignorant  of  nature,  they 
knew  nothing  of  reason,  they  under- 
stood not  truth  ;  they  had  only  a  gloomy 
religion,  without  one  certain  idea  of 
either  morals  or  virtue.  When  man 
committed  evil  against  his  fellow  crea- 
ture, he  believed  he  had  offended  his 
God;  but  he  also  believed  himself  for- 
given, as  soon  as  he  had  prostrated  him- 
self before  him;  as  soon  as  he  had  made 
him  costly  presents,  and  gained  over 
the  priest  to  his  interest.  Thus  reli- 
gion, far  from  giving  a  sure,  a  natural, 
and  a  known  basis  to  morals,  only  rest- 
ed it  on  an  unsteady  fc  indation,  made 
it  consist  in  ideal  duties,  impossible  to 


*  Thus  Trophonius,  from  his  cave,  made 
affrighted  mortals  tremble,  shook  the  stoutest 
nerves,  made  them  turn  pale  with  fear;  his 
miserable,  deluded  supplicants,  who  were  obli- 
ged to  sacrifice  to  him,  anointed  their  bodies 
with  oil,  bathed  in  certain  rivers,  and  after 
they  had  offered  their  cake  of  honey  and  re 
ceived  their  destiny,  became  so  dejected,  s>< 
wretchedly  forlorn,  that  to  this  day  their  de- 
scendants, when  they  behold  a  melanch-,iy 
man,  exclaim,  "He  has  consulted  the  oracu  qf 
TraphonivH. 


THE  ERROURS  OP  MAN. 


153 


be  accurately  understood.  What  did  I 
say?  It  first  corrupted  him,  and  his 
expiations  finished  by  ruining  him. 
THUS  when  religion  was  desirous  to 
combat  the  unruly  passions  of  man,  it 
attempted  it  in  vain;  always  enthusi- 
astic, and  deprived  of  experience,  it 
knew  nothing  of  the  true  remedies  ; 
those  which  it  applied  were  disgusting, 
only  suitable  to  make  the  sick  revolt 
against  them ;  it  made  them  pass  for 
divine,  because  they  were  not  made  of 
man  ;  they  were  inefficacious,  because 
chimeras  could  effectuate  nothing 
against  those  substantive  passions  to 
which  motives  more  real  and  more 
powerful  concurred  to  give  birth,  which 
every  thing  conspired  to  nourish  in  his 
heart.  The  voice  of  religion,  or  of  the 
Gods,  could  not  make  itself  heard 
amidst  the  tumult  of  society,  where  all 
cried  out  to  man,  that  he  could  not 
render  himself  happy  without  injuring 
his  fellow  creature;  these  vain  clam- 
ours only  made  virtue  hateful  to  him, 
because  they  always  represented  it  as 
the  enemy  to  his  happiness — as  the  bane 
of  human  pleasures.  He  consequently 
failed  in  the  observation  of  his  duties, 
because  real  motives  were  never  held 
forth  to  induce  him  to  make  the  requi- 
site sacrifice:  the  present  prevailed 
over  the  future,  the  visible  over  the  in- 
visible, the  known  over  the  unknown ; 
and  man  became  wicked,  because  every 
tiling  informed  him  he  must  be  so  in  or- 
der to  obtain  happiness. 

Thus,  the  sum  of  human  misery  was 
never  diminished;  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  accumulating  either  by  his  religion, 
by  his  government,  by  his  education,  by 
his  opinions,  or  hy  the  institutions  he 
adopted  under  the  idea  of  rendering  his 
condition  more  pleasant.  It  cannot  be 
too  often  repeated,  it  is  in  errour  that 
man  will  find  the  true  spring  of  those 
evils  with  which  the  human  race  is  af- 
flicted ;  it  is  not  nature  that  renders 
him  miserable  and  unhappy  ;  it  is  not 
an  irritated  Divinity,  who  is  desirous  he 
should  live  in  tears ;  it  is  not  hereditary 
depravation  that  has  caused  him  to  be 
wicked  and  miserable,  it  is  to  errour 
that  these  deplorable  effects  are  to  be 
ascribed. 

The  sovereign  good,  so  much  sought 
after  by  some  philosophers,  announced 
with  so  much  emphasis  by  others,  may 
be  considered  as  a  chimera,  like  unto 

No.  V.— 20 


that  marvellous  panacea,,  which  some 
adepts  have  been  willing  to  pass  upon 
mankind  for  a  universal  remedy.  All 
men  are  diseased  ;  the  moment  of  their 
birth  delivers  them  over  to  the  contagion 
of  errour ;  but  individuals  are  variously 
affected  by  it,  by  a  consequence  of  their 
natural  organization  and  of  their  pecu- 
liar circumstances.  If  there  is  a  sove- 
reign remedy  which  can  be  indiscrimi- 
nately applied  to  the  diseases  of  man, 
there  is  without  doubt  only  one,  and 
this  remedy  is  truth,  which  he  must 
draw  from  nature. 

At  the  sight  of  those  errours  which 
blind  the  greater  number  of  mortals — 
of  those  delusions  which  man  is  doom- 
ed to  suck  in  with  his  mother's  milk ; 
at  the  sight  of  those  desires,  of  those 
propensities,  by  which  he  is  perpetually 
agitated,  of  those  passions  which  tor- 
ment him,  of  those  inquietudes  which 
gnaw  his  repose,  of  those  evils,  as  well 
physical  as  moral,  which  assail  him  on 
every  side,  the  contemplator  of  human- 
ity would  be  tempted  to  believe  that 
happiness  was  not  made  for  this  world, 
and  that  any  effort  to  cure  those  minds 
which  every  thing  unites  to  poison, 
would  be  a  vain  enterprise.  When  he 
considers  those  numerous  superstitions 
by  which  man  is  kept  in  a  continual 
state  of  alarm,  that  divide  him  from  his 
fellow,  that  render  him  irrational ;  Avhen 
he  beholds  the  many  despotic  govern- 
ments that  oppress  him ;  when  he  ex- 
amines those  multitudinous,  unintelli- 
gible, contradictory  laws  that  torture 
him;  the  manifold  injustice  under 
which  he  groans  ;  when  he  turns  his 
mind  to  the  barbarous  ignorance  in 
which  he  is  steeped,  almost  over  the 
whole  surface  of  the  earth ;  when  he 
witnesses  those  enormous  crimes  that 
debase  society,  and  render  it  so  hateful 
to  almost  every  individual ;  he  has  great 
difficulty  to  prevent  his  mind  from  em- 
bracing the  idea,  that  misfortune  is  the 
only  appendage  of  the  human  species ; 
that  this  world  is  made  solely  to  assem- 
ble the  unhappy  ;  that  human  felicity  is 
a  chimera,  or  at  least  a  point  so  fugi- 
tive, that  it  is  impossible  it  can  be  fixed. 

Thus  superstitious  and  atrabilious 
mortals,  nourished  in  melancholy,  un- 
ceasingly see  either  nature  or  its  author 
exasperated  against  the  human  race; 
they  suppose  that  man  is  the  constant 
object  of  heaven's  wrath  ;  that  he  ini- 


154 


THE  ERROURS  OP  MAN. 


tates  it  even  by  his  desires,  and  renders 
himself  criminal  by  seeking  a  felicity 
which  is  not  made  for  him.  Struck 
with  behold  ing  that  those  objects  which 
he  covets  in  the  most  lively  manner, 
are  never  competent  to  content  his 
heart,  they  have  decried  them  as  abom- 
inations, as  things  prejudicial  to  his  in- 
terest, as  odious ;  they  prescribe  him 
that  he  should  entirely  shun  them ; 
they  have  endeavoured  to  put  to  the 
rout  all  his  passions,  without  any  dis- 
tinction even  -of  those  which  are  the 
most  useful  to  himself,  the  most  bene- 
ficial to  those  beings  with  whom  he 
lives :  they  have  been  willing  that  man 
should  render  himself  insensible — 
should  become  his  own  enemy — that  he 
should  separate  himself  from  his  fellow 
creatures — that  he  should  renounce  all 
pleasure — that  he  should  refuse  happi- 
ness ;  in  short,  that  he  should  cease  to 
be  a  man ;  that  he  should  become  un- 
natural. "  Mortals  1"  have  they  said, 
"ye  were  born  to  be  unhappy  ;  the  au- 
thor of  your  existence  has  destined  ye 
for  misfortune ;  enter  then  into  his 
views,  and  render  yourselves  miserable. 
Combat  those  desires  which  have  feli- 
city for  their  object ;  renounce  those 
pleasures  which  it  is  your  essence  to 
love ;  attach  yourselves  to  nothing  in 
this  world ;  fly  a  society  that  only  serves 
to  inflame  your  imagination,  to  make 
you  sigh  after  benefits  you  ought  not  to 
enjoy ;  break  up  the  spring  of  your 
souls ;  repress  that  activity  that  seeks 
to  put  a  period  to  your  sufferings ;  suffer, 
afflict  yourselves,  groan,  be  wretched  ; 
such  is  for  you  the  true  road  to  happi- 
ness." 

Blind  physicians !  who  have  mislay 
ken  for  a  disease  the  natural  state  of! 
man!  they  have  not  seen  that  his  de/ 
sires  and  his  passions  were  essential  t^ 
him;  that  to  defend  him  from  lovins 
and  desiring,  is  to  deprive  him  of  thai 
activity,  which  is  the  vital  principle  of 
society ;  that  to  tell  him  to  hate  anc 
despise  himself,  is  to  take  from  him  the 
most  substantive  motive  that  can  con- 
duct him  to  virtue.  It  is  thus,  that,  by 
its  supernatural  remedies,  religion,  far 
from  curing  evils,  has  only  increased 
them,  and  made  them  more  desperate ; 
in  the  room  of  calming  his  passions,  it 
gives  them  inveteracy,  makes  them 
more  dangerous,  renders  them  more 
venomous,  turns  that  into  a  curse  which 


nature  has  given  him  for  his  preserva- 
tion and  happiness.  It  is  not  by  extin- 
guishing the  passions  of  man  that  he  is 
to  be  rendered  happier,  it  is  by  direct- 
ing them  towards  useful  objects,  which, 
by  being  truly  advantageous  to  himself, 
must  of  necessity  be  beneficial  to  others. 

In  despite  of  the  errours  which  blind 
the  human  race;  in  despite  of  the  ex- 
travagance of  man's  religious  and  polit- 
ical institutions,  notwithstanding  the 
complaints  and  murmurs  he  is  continu- 
ally breathing  forth  against  his  destiny, 
there  are  yet  happy  individuals  on  the 
earth.  Man  has  sometimes  the  felicity 
to  behold  sovereigns  animated  by  the 
noble  passion  to  render  nations  flour- 
ishing and  happy ;  now  and  then  he 
encounters  an  Antoninus,  a  Trajan,  a 
Julian,  an  Alfred,  a  Henri  IV.;*  he 
meets  with  elevated  minds,  who  place 
their  glory  in  encouraging  merit,  who 
rest  their  happiness  in  succouring  indi- 
gence, who  think  it  honourable  to  lend  a 
helping  hand  to  oppressed  virtue :  he 
sees  genius,  occupied  with  the  desire  of 
eliciting  the  admiration  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  by  serving  them  usefully,  and 
satisfied  with  enjoying  that  happiness 
he  procures  for  others. 

Let  it  not  be  believed  that  the  man 
of  poverty  himself,  is  excluded  from 
happiness.  Mediocrity  and  indigence 
frequently  procure  for  him  advantages 
that  opulence  and  grandeur  are  obliged 
to  acknowledge.  The  soul  of  the  needy 
man,  always  in  action,  never  ceases  to 
form  desires,  whilst  the  rich  and  the 
powerful  are  frequently  in  the  afflicting 
embarrassment  of  either  not  knowing 
what  to  wish  for,  or  else  of  desiring 
those  objects  which  it  is  impossible  for 
them  to  obtain.f  The  poor  man's 
body,  habituated  to  labour,  knows  the 
sweets  of  repose ;  this  repose  of  the 
body  is  the  most  troublesome  fatigue  to 
him  who  is  wearied  with  his  idleness. 
Exercise  and  frugality  procure  for  the 
one  vigour,  health,  and  contentment; 
the  intemperance  and  sloth  of  the  other 
furnish  him  only  with  disgust  and  in- 
firmities. Indigence  sets  all  the  springs 
of  the  soul  to  work ;  it  is  the  mother  of 
industry ;  from  its  bosom  arise  genius, 

*  To  this  scanty  list  may  now  be  added  the 
names  of  George  Washington  and  Thomas 
Jefferson. 

t  Petronius  says:  Nescio  quomodo  bon» 
mentis  foror  est  paupertas. 


THE  ERROURS  OF  MA!T. 


155 


talents,  and  merit,  to  which  opulence 
and  grandeur  pay  their  homage.  In 
short,  the  blows  of  fate  find  in  the  poor 
man  a  flexible  reed,  who  bends  without 
breaking. 

Thus  nature  is  not  a  stepmother  to 
the  greater  number  of  her  children. 
He  whom  fortune  has  placed  in  an  ob- 
scure station,  is  ignorant  of  that  am- 
bition which  devours  the  courtier; 
knows  nothing  of  the  inquietude  which 
deprives  the  intriguer  of  his  rest;  is 
a  stranger  to  the  remorse,  disgust,  and 
weariness  of  the  man,  who,  enriched 
with  the  spoils  of  a  nation,  does  not 
know  how  to  turn  them  to  his  profit. 
The  more  the  body  labours,  the  more 
the  imagination  reposes  itself;  it  is  the 
diversity  of  the  objects  man  runs  over 
that  kindles  it ;  it  is  the  satiety  of  those 
objects  that  causes  him  disgust;  the 
imagination  of  the  indigent  is  circum- 
scribed by  necessity:  he  receives  but 
few  ideas,  he  is  acquainted  with  but 
few  objects ;  in  consequence  he  has  but 
little  to  desire;  he  contents  himself 
with  that  little,  whilst  the  entire  of  na- 
ture with  difficulty  suffices  to  satisfy 
the  insatiable  desires,  to  gratify  the 
imaginary  wants  of  the  man  plunged 
in  luxury,  who  has  run  over  and  ex- 
hausted all  common  objects.  Those, 
whom  prejudice  contemplates  as  the 
most  unhappy  of  men,  frequently  enjoy 
advantages  more  real  and  much  greater 
those  who  oppress  them,  who  despise 
them,  but  who  are  nevertheless  often 
reduced  to  the  misery  of  envying  them. 
Limited  desires  are  a  real  benefit:  the 
man  of  meaner  condition,  in  his  hum- 
ble fortune,  desires  only  bread :  he 
obtains  it  bjr  the  sweat  of  his  brow ;  he 
would  eat  it  with  pleasure  if  injustice 
did  not  almost  always  render  it  bitter  to 
him.  By  the  delirium  of  governments, 
those  who  roll  in  abundance,  without 
for  that  reason  being  more  happy,  dis- 
pute with  the  cultivator  even  the  fruits 
which  the  earth  yields  to  the  labour  of 
his  hands.  Princes  sacrifice  their  true 
happiness,  as  well  as  that  of  their  states, 
to  these  passions,  to  those  caprices, 
which  discourage  the  people,  which 
plunge  their  provinces  in  misery,  which 
make  millions  unhappy  without  any 
advantage  to  themselves.  Tyrants 
oblige  their  subjects  to  curse  their  ex- 
istence, to  abandon  labour,  and  take 
from  them  the  courage  of  propagating 


a  progeny  who  would  be  as  unhappy  as 
their  fathers :  the  excess  of  oppression 
sometimes  obliges  them  to  revolt  and 
to  avenge  themselves  by  wicked  out- 
rages of  the  injustice  it  has  heaped  on 
their  devoted  heads.  Injustice,  by  re- 
ducing indigence  to  despair,  obliges  it 
to  seek  in  crime  resources  against  its 
misery.  An  unjust  government  pro- 
duces discouragement ;  its  vexations 
depopulate  a  country ;  the  earth  re- 
mains without  culture ;  from  thence  is 
bred  frightful  famine,  which  gives  birth 
to  contagion  and  plague.  The  misery 
of  a  people  produce  revolutions :  soured 
by  misfortunes  their  minds  get  into  a 
state  of  fermentation,  and  the  overthrow 
of  an  empire  is  the  necessary  effect.  It 
is  thus  that  physics  and  morals  are  al- 
ways connected,  or  rather  are  the  same 
thing. 

If  the  bad  morals  of  chiefs  do  not  al- 
ways produce  such  marked  effects,  at 
least  they  generate  slothfulness,  of 
which  the  effect  is  to  fill  society  with 
mendicants  and  malefactors,  whose  vi- 
cious course  neither  religion  nor  the 
terrour  of  the  laws  can  arrest ;  which 
nothing  can  induce  to  remain  the  un- 
happy spectators  of  a  welfare  they  are 
not  permitted  to  participate.  They 
seek  a  fleeting  happiness  at  the  ex- 
pense even  of  their  lives,  when  injus- 
tice has  shut  up  to  them  the  road  of  la- 
bour and  industry,  which  would  have 
rendered  them  both  useful  and  honest. 

Let  it  not  then  be  said,  that  no  gov- 
ernment can  render  all  its  subjects  hap- 
py :  without  doubt  it  cannot  flatter  it- 
self Avith  contenting  the  capricious 
humours  of  some  idle  citizens,  who  are 
obliged  to  rack  their  imagination  to  ap- 
pease the  disgust  arising  from  lassi- 
tude :  but  it  can,  and  it  ought  to  occupy 
itself  with  ministering  to  the  real  wauts 
of  the  multitude.  A  society  enjoys  all 
the  happiness  of  which  it  is  susceptible, 
whenever  the  greater  number  of  its 
members-are  wholesomely  fed,  decently 
clothed,  comfortably  lodged ;  in  short, 
when  they  can  without  an  excess  of 
toil  beyond  their  strength  procure 
wherewith  to  satisfy  those  wants  which 
nature  has  made  necessary  to  their  ex- 
istence. Their  minds  rest  contented 
as  soon  as  they  are  convinced  no  power 
can  ravish  from  them  the  fruits  of  their 
industry,  and  that  they  labour  for  them- 
selves. By  a  consequence  pf  humaa 


156 


THE  ERROURS  OF  MAN. 


folly,  whole  nations  are  obliged  to  toil 
incessantly,  to  waste  their  strength,  to 
sweat  under  their  burdens,  to  drench 
the  earth  with  their  tears,  in  order  to 
maintain  the  luxury,  to  gratify  the 
whims,  to  support  the  corruption  of  a 
small  number  of  irrational  beings,  of 
some  few  useless  men,  to  whom  happi- 
ness has  become  impossible,  because 
their  bewildered  imaginations  no  longer 
know  any  bounds.  It  is  thus  that  re- 
ligious and  political  errours  have  chang- 
ed the  fair  face  of  nature  into  a  valley 
of  tears. 

For  want  of  consulting  reason,  for 
want  of  knowing  the  value  of  virtue, 
for  want  of  being  instructed  in  their 
true  interests,  for  want  of  being  ac- 
quainted with  what  constitutes  solid 
and  real  felicity,  the  prince  and  the  peo- 
ple, the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  great  and 
the  little,  are  unquestionably  frequently 
very  far  removed  from  content ;  never- 
theless if  an  impartial  eye  be  glanced 
over  the  human  race,  it  will  be  found 
to  comprise  a  greater  number  of  bene- 
fits than  of  evils.  No  man  is  entirely 
happy,  but  he  is  so  in  detail.  Those 
who  make  the  most  bitter  complaints 
of  the  rigour  of  their  fate,  are,  however, 
held  in  existence  by  threads  frequently 
imperceptible,  which  prevent  the  desire 
of  quitting  it.  In  short,  habit  lightens 
to  man  the  burden  of  his  troubles; 
grief  suspended  becomes  true  enjoy- 
ment ;  every  want  is  a  pleasure  in  the 
moment  when  it  is  satisfied  ;  freedom 
from  chagrin,  the  absence  of  disease,  is 
a  happy  state  which  he  enjoys  secretly 
and  without  even  perceiving  it ;  hope, 
which  rarely  abandons  him  entirely, 
helps  him  to  support  the  most  cruel  dis- 
asters. The  prisoner  laughs  in  his 
irons ;  the  wearied  villager  returns  sing- 
ing to  his  cottage ;  in  short,  the  man 
who  calls  himself  the  most  unfortunate, 
never  sees  death  approach  without  dis- 
may, at  least  if  despair  has  not  totally 
disfigured  nature  in  his  eyes.* 

As  long  as  man  desires  the  continua- 
tion of  his  being,  he  has  no  right  to  call 
himself  completely  unhappy ;  whilst 
hope  sustains  him,  he  still  enjoys  a 
great  benefit.  If  man  was  more  just  in 
rendering  to  himself  an  account  of  his 
pleasures  and  of  his  pains,  he  would 


*  See  what  has  been  said  on  suicide  in 
chapter  xiv. 


acknowledge  that  the  sum  of  the  first 
exceeds  by  much  the  amount  of  the 
last ;  he  would  perceive  that  he  keeps 
a  very  exact  leger  of  the  evil,  but  a 
very  unfaithful  journal  of  the  good  :  in- 
deed he  would  avow,  that  there  are 
but  few  days  entirely  unhappy  during 
the  whole  course  of  his  existence.  His 
periodical  wants  procure  for  him  the 
pleasure  of  satisfying  them :  his  mind 
is  perpetually  moved  by  a  thousand 
objects,  of  which  the  variety,  the  mul- 
tiplicity, the  novelty,  rejoices  him,  sus- 
pends his  sorrows,  diverts  his  chagrin. 
His  physical  evils,  are  they  violent? 
They  are  not  of  long  duration ;  they 
conduct  him  quickly  to  his  end  :  the 
sorrows  of  his  mind  conduct  him  to  it 
equally.  At  the  same  time  that  nature 
refuses  him  every  happiness,  she  opens 
to  him  a  door  by  which  he  quits  life : 
does  he  refuse  to  enter  it?  it  is  that  he 
yet  finds  pleasure  in  existence.  Are 
nations  reduced  to  despair?  Are  they 
completely  miserable  ?  They  have  re- 
course to  arms ;  and,  at  the  risk  o-f  per- 
ishing, they  make  the  most  violent  ef- 
forts to  terminate  their  sufferings. 

Thus,  as  he  sees  so  many  of  his  fel- 
lows cling  to  life,  man  ought  to  con- 
clude they  aie  rot  so  unhappy  as  he 
thinks.  Then  let  him  not  exaggerate 
the  evils  of  the  human  race  ;  let  him 
impose  silence  on  that  gloomy  humour, 
that  persuades  him  these  evils  are  with- 
out remedy ;  let  him  diminish  by  de- 
grees the  number  of  his  errours,  and 
his  calamities  will  vanish  in  the  same 
proportion.  He  is  not  to  conclude  him- 
self infelicitous,  because  his  heart  nev- 
er ceases  to  form  new  desires.  Since 
his  body  daily  requires  nourishment,  let 
him  infer  that  it  is  sound,  that  it  fulfils 
its  functions.  As  long  as  he  has  de- 
sires, the  proper  deduction  ought  to  be, 
that  his  mind  is  kept  in  the  necessary 
activity  ;  he  should  also  gather  from  all 
this  that  passions  are  essential  to  him, 
that  they  constitute  the  happiness  of  a  be- 
ing who  feels,  who  thinks,  who  receives 
ideas,  who  must  necessarily  love  and 
desire  that  which  promises  him  a  mode 
of  existence  analogous  to  his  natural 
energies.  As  long  as  he  exists,  as  long 
as  the  spring  of  his  mind  maintains  its 
elasticity,  this  mind  desires  ;  as  long  as 
it  desires,  he  experiences  the  activity 
which  is  necessary  to  him  ;  as  long  as 
he  acts,  so  long  he  lives.  Human  life 


REMEDIES  FOR  THE  EVILS  OP  MAN. 


157 


may  be  compared  to  a  river,  of  which 
the  waters  succeed  each  other,  drive 
each  other  forward,  and  flow  on  with- 
out interruption;  these  waters  obliged 
to  roll  over  an  unequal  bed,  encoun- 
ter at  intervals  those  obstacles  which 
prevent  their  stagnation;  they  never 
cease  to  undulate,  recoil,  and  to  rush 
forward,  until  they  are  restored  to  the 
ocean  of  nature. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Those  Ideas  which  are  true,  or  founded  upon 
Nature,  are  the  only  Remedies  for  the  Evils 
of  Man. — Recapitulation. —  Conclusion  of 
the  first  Part. 

WHENEVER  man  ceases  to  take  expe- 
rience for  his  guide,  he  falls  into  er- 
rour.  His  errours  become  yet  more 
dangerous  and  assume  a  more  deter- 
mined inveteracy,  when  they  are  cloth- 
ed with  the  sanction  of  religion :  it  is 
then  that  he  hardly  ever  consents  to  re- 
turn into  the  paths  of  truth  ;  he  believes 
himself  deeply  interested  in  no  longer 
seeing  clearly  that  which  lies  before 
him ;  he  fancies  he  has  an  essential  ad- 
vantage in  no  longer  understanding 
himself,  and  that  his  happiness  exacts 
that  he  should  shut  his  eyes  to  truth. 
If  the  majority  of  moral  philosophers 
have  mistaken  the  human  heart ;  if 
they  have  deceived  themselves  upon  its 
di  eases  and  the  remedies  that  are  suit- 
able ;  if  the  remedies  they  have  admin- 
istered have  been  inefficacious  or  even 
dangerous,  it  is  because  they  have  aban- 
doned nature,  have  resisted  experience, 
and  have  not  had  sufficient  steadiness 
to  consult  their  reason  ;  because,  having 
renounced  the  evidence  of  their  senses, 
they  have  only  followed  the  caprices  of 
an  imagination  either  dazzled  by  enthu- 
siasm or  disturbed  by  fear,  and  have 
preferred  the  illusions'  it  has  held  forth 
to  the  realities  of  nature,  who  never  de- 
ceives. 

It  is  for  want  of  having  felt,  that  an 
intelligent  being  cannot  for  an  instant 
lose  sight  of  his  own  peculiar  conser- 
vation— of  his  particular  interests,  ei- 
ther real  or  fictitious — of  his  own  wel- 
fare, whether  permanent  or  transitory; 
in  short,  of  his  happiness,  either  true 
or  false  ;  it  is  for  want  of  having  con- 
sidered that  desires  and  passions  are 
essential  and  natural,  that  both  the  one 


and  the  other  are  motions  necessary  to 
the  mind  of  man,  that  the  physicians 
of  the  human  mind  have  supposed  su- 
pernatural causes  for  his  wanderings, 
and  have  only  applied  to  his  evils  topi- 
cal remedies,  either  useless  or  danger- 
ous. Indeed,  in  desiring  him  to  stifle 
his  desires,  to  combat  his  propensities, 
to  annihilate  his  passions,  they  have 
done  no  more  than  give  him  steril  pre- 
cepts, at  once  vague  and  impracticable ; 
these  vain  lessons  have  influenced  no 
one ;  they  have  at  most  restrained  some 
few  mortals,  whom  a  quiet  imagination 
but  feebly  solicited  to  evil ;  the  terrours 
with  which  they  have  accompanied 
them,  have  disturbed  the  tranquillity  of 
those  persons,  who  were  moderate  by 
their  nature,  without  ever  arresting  the 
ungovernable  temperament  of  those 
who  were  inebriated  by  their  passions, 
or  hurried  along  by  the  torrent  of  habit. 
In  short,  the  promises  of  superstition,  as 
well  as  the  menaces  it  holds  forth,  have 
only  formed  fanatics  and  enthusiasts, 
who  are  either  dangerous  or  useless  to 
society,  without  ever  making  man  truly 
virtuous,  that  is  to  say,  useful  to  his 
fellow  creatures. 

These  empirics,  guided  by  a  blind 
routine,  have  not  seen  that  man,  as  long 
as  he  exists,  is  obliged  to  feel,  to  desire, 
to  have  passions,  and  to  satisfy  them  in 
proportion  to  the  energy  which  his  or- 
ganization has  given  him ;  they  have 
not  perceived  that  education  planted 
these  desires  in  his  heart,  that  habit 
rooted  them,  that  his  government,  fre- 
quently vicious,  corroborated  their 
growth,  that  public  opinion  stamped 
them  with  its  approbation,  that  experi- 
ence rendered  them  necessary,  and  that 
to  tell  men  thus  constituted  to  destroy 
their  passions,  was  either  to  plunge 
them  into  despair,  or  else  to  order  them 
remedies  too  revolting  for  their  temper- 
ament. In  the  actual  state  of  opulent 
societies,  to  say  to  a  man  who  knows 
by  experience  that  riches  procure  every 
pleasure,  that  he  must  not  desire  them, 
that  he  must  not  make  any  efforts  to  ob- 
tain them,  that  he  ought  to  detach  him- 
self from  them,  is  to  persuade  him  to 
render  himself  miserable.  To  tell  an 
ambitious  man  not  to  desire  grandeur 
and  power,  which  every  thing  conspires 
to  point  out  to  him  as  the  height  of  fe- 
licity, is  to  order  him  to  overturn  at 
one  blow  the  habitual  system  of  his 


158 


REMEDIES  FOR  THE  EVILS  OF  MAN. 


ideas ;  it  is  to  speak  to  a  deaf  man.  To 
tell  a  lover  of  an  impetuous  tempera- 
ment, to  stifle  his  passion  for  the  ob- 
ject that  enchants  him,  is  to  make  him 
understand  that  he  ought  to  renounce 
his  happiness.  To  oppose  religion  to 
such  puissant  interests,  is  to  combat 
realities  by  chimerical  speculations. 

Indeed,  if  things  were  examined 
without  prepossession,  it  would  be 
found  that  the  greater  part  of  the  pre- 
cepts inculcated  by  religion,  or  which 
fanatical  and  supernatural  morals  give 
to  man,  are  as  ridiculous  as  they  are 
impossible  to  be  put  into  practice.  To 
interdict  passion  to  man,  is  to  desire 
of  him  not  to  be  a  human  creature  ;  to 
counsel  an  individual  of  violent  ima- 
gination to  moderate  his  desires,  is  to 
advise  him  to  change  his  temperament 
— to  request  his  blood  to  flow  more 
sluggishly.  To  tell  a  man  to  renounce 
his  habits,  is  to  be  willing  that  a  citi- 
zen, accustomed  to  clothe  himself, 
should  consent  to  walk  quite  naked  ;  it 
would  avail  as  much  to  desire  him  to 
change  the  lineament  of  his  face,  to 
destroy  his  configuration,  to  extinguish 
his  imagination,  to  alter  the  course  of 
his  fluids,  as  to  command  him  not  to 
have  passions  analogous  with  his  natu- 
ral energy,  or  to  lay  aside  those  which 
habit  and  his  circumstances  have  con- 
verted into  wants.*  Such  are,  how- 
ever, the  so  much  boasted  remedies 
which  the  greater  number  of  moral 
philosophers  apply  to  human  depravity. 
Is  it  then  surprising  they  do  not  pro- 
duce the  desired  effect,  or  that  they 
only  reduce  man  to  a  state  of  despair, 
by  the  effervescence  that  results  from 
the  continual  conflict  which  they  excite 
between  the  passions  of  his  heart,  be- 
tween his  vices  and  his  virtues,  be- 
tween his  habits  and  those  chimerical 
fears  with  which  superstition  is  at  all 
times  ready  to  overwhelm  him  ?  The 
vices  of  society,  aided  by  the  objects 

*  It  is  evident  that  these  counsels,  extrava- 
gant as  they  are,  have  been  suggested  to  man 
by  all  religions.  The  Indian,  the  Japanese, 
the  Mahometan,  the  Christian,  the  Jew,  each, 
according  to  his  superstition,  has  made  per- 
fection to  consist  in  fasting,  mortification,  ab- 
stinence from  the  most  rational  pleasures,  re- 
tirement from  the  busy  world,  and  in  labour- 
ing without  ceasing  to  counteract  nature. 
Among  the  Pagans  the  priests  of  the  Syrian 
Goddess  were  not  more  rational— their  piety 
Jed  them  to  mutilate  themselves. 


of  which  it  avails  itself  to  whet  the 
desires  of  man,  the  pleasures,  the  riches, 
the  grandeur,  which  his  government 
hold?  forth  to  him  as  so  many  seductive 
magnets,  the  advantage  which  educa- 
tion, the  benefits,  example,  public  opin- 
ion render  dear  to  him,  attract  him  on 
ojie  side ;  whilst  agloomy  morality  vain- 
ly solicits  him  on  the  other ;  ihu?,  reli- 
gion plunges  him  into  misery — holds  a 
violent  struggle  with  his  heart,  without 
ever  gaining  the  victory  ;  when  by  ac- 
cident it  does  prevail  against  so  many 
united  forces,  it  renders  him  unhappy 
— it  completely  destroys  the  spring  of 
his  mind. 

Passions  are  the  true  counterpoise 
to  passions;  then,  let  him  not  seek  to 
destroy  them,  but  let  him  endeavour 
to  direct  them ;  let  him  balance  those 
which  are  prejudicial,  by  those  which 
are  useful  to  society.  Reason,  the  fruit 
of  experience  is  only  the  art  of  choos- 
ing those  passions  to  which,  for  his 
own  peculiar  happiness,  he  ought  to 
listen.  Education  is  the  true  art  of 
disseminating,  the  proper  method  of 
cultivating  advantageous  passions  in 
the  heart  of  man.  Legislation  is  the 
art  of  restraining  dangerous  passions, 
and  of  exciting  those  which  may  be 
conducive  to  the  public  welfare.  Reli- 
gion is  only  the  art  of  planting  and  of 
nourishing  in  the  mind  of  man  those 
chimeras,  those  illusions,  those  impos- 
tures, those  incertitudes,  from  whence 
spring  passions  fatal  to  himself  as  well 
as  to  others:  it  is  only  ty  bearing  up 
with  fortitude  against  these,  that  he 
can  place  himself  on  the  road  to  hap- 
piness.f 

Reason  and  morals  cannot  effect 
any  thing  on  mankind,  if  they  do  not 
point  out  to  each  individual,  that  his 
true  interest  is  attached  to  a  conduct 
useful  to  others  and  beneficial  to  him- 
self; this  conduct  to  be  useful  must 
conciliate  for  him  the  favour  of  those 
beings  who  are  necessary  to  his  happi- 


t  To  these  we  may  add  philosophy,  which 
is  the  art  of  advocating  truth,  of  renouncing 
errour,  of  contemplating  reality,  of  drawing 
wisdom  from  experience,  of  cultivating  man's 
nature  to  his  own  felicity,  by  teaching  him 
to  contribute  to  that  of  his  associates;  in 
short,  it  is  reason,  education,  and  legislation, 
united  to  further  the  great  end  of  human  ex- 
istence, by  causing  the  passions  of  man  to 
flow  in  a  current  genial  to  his  own  happi-. 
ness. 


REMEDIESFOR  THE   EVILS  OF  MAN. 


151 


liess :  it  is  then  for  the  interest  of  man- 
kind, for  the  happiness  of  the  human 
race,  it  is  for  the  esteem  of  himself,  for 
the  love  of  his  fellows,  for  the  advan- 
tages which  ensue,  that  education  in 
early  life  should  kindle  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  citizen  ;  this  is  the  true 
means  of  obtaining  those  happy  results 
with  which  habit  should  familiarize 
him,  which  public  opinion  should  ren- 
der dear  to  his  heart,  for  which  exam- 
ple ought  continually  to  rouse  his  fa- 
culties. Government,  by  the  aid  of 
recompenses,  ought  to  encourage  him 
to  follow  this  plan  ;  by  visiting  crime 
with  punishment,  it  ought  to  deter 
those  who  are  willing  to  interrupt  it. 
Thus  the  hope  of  a  true  welfare,  the 
fear  of  real  evil,  will  be  passions  suit- 
able to  countervail  those  which,  by 
their  impetuosity,  would  injure  society ; 
these  last  will  at  least  become  very 
rare,  if  instead  of  feeding  man's  mind 
with  unintelligible  speculations,  in  lieu 
of  vibrating  on  his  ears  words  void  of 
sense,  he  is  only  spoken  to  of  realities, 
only  shown  those  interests  which  are 
in  unison  with  truth. 

Man  is  frequently  so  wicked,  only 
because  he  almost  always  feels  him- 
self interested  in  being  so ;  let  him  be 
more  enlightened  and  more  happy,  and 
he  will  necessarily  become  better.  An 
equitable  government,  a  vigilant  ad- 
ministration will  presently  fill  the  state 
with  honest  citizens ;  it  will  hold  forth 
to  them  present  reasons,  real  and  pal- 
pable, to  be  virtuous ;  it  will  instruct 
them  in  their  duties;  it  will  foster 
them  with  its  cares  ;  it  will  allure  them 
by  the  assurance  of  their  own  peculiar 
happiness;  its  promises  and  its  mena- 
ces faithfully  executed,  will,  unques- 
tionably, have  much  more  weight  than 
those  of  superstition,  which  never  ex- 
hibits to  their  view  other  than  illusory 
benefit-;,  fallacious  punishments,  which 
the  man  hardened  in  wickedness  will 
doubt  every  time  he  finds  an  interest  in 
questioning  them  ;  present  motives  will 
tell  more  home  to  his  heart,  than  those 
which  are  distant  and  at  best  uncer- 
tain. The  vicious  and  the  wicked  are 
so  common  upon  the  earth,  so  pertina- 
cious in  their  evil  courses,  so  attached 
to  their  irregularities,  only  because 
there  are  but  few  governments  that 
make  man  feel  the  advantage  of  being 
just,  honest,  and  benevolent ;  on  the 


contrary,  there  is  hardly  any  place 
where  the  most  powerful  interests  do 
not  ?olicit  him  to  crime  by  favouring 
the  propensities  of  a  vicious  organiza- 
tion, which  nothing  has  attempted  to 
rectify  or  lead  towards  virtue.*  A  sav- 
age, who  in  his  horde,  knows  not  the 
value  of  money,  certainly  would  not 
commit  a  crime ;  if  transplanted  into 
civilized  society,  he  will  presently  learn 
to  desire  it,  will  make  efforts  to  obtain 
it,  and,  if  he  can  without  danger,  finish 
by  stealing  it,  above  all  if  he  had  not 
been  taught  to  respect  the  property  of 
the  beings  who  environ  him.  The 
savage  and  the  child  are  precisely  in 
the  same  state ;  it  is  the  negligence  of 
society,  of  those  intrusted  with  their 
education,  that  render  both  the  one 
and  the  other  wicked.  The  son  of  a 
noble,  from  his  infancy  learns  to  desire 
power,  at  a  riper  age  he  becomes  ambi- 
tious ;  if  he  has  the  address  to  insinu- 
ate himself  into  favour,  he  becomes 
wicked,  and  he  may  be  so  with  impu- 
nity. It  is  not  therefore  nature  that 
makes  man  wicked,  they  are  his  in- 
stitutions which  determine  him  to 
vice.  The  infant  brought  up  amongst 
robbers,  can  generally  become  no- 
thing but  a  malefactor;  if  he  had 
been  reared  with  honest  people,  the 
chance  is  he  would  have  been  a  virtu- 
ous man. 

If  the  source  be  traced  of  that  pro- 
found ignorance  in  which  man  is  with 
respect  to  his  morals,  to  the  motives 
that  can  give  volition  to  his  will,  it  will 
be  found  in  those  false  ideas  which  the 
greater  number  of  speculators  have 
formed  to  themselves  of  human  nature. 
The  science  of  morals  has  become  .an 
enigma,  which  it  is  impossible  to  un- 
ravel, because  man  has  made  himself 
double,  has  distinguished  his  mind 
from  his  body,  supposed  it  of  a  nature 
different  from  all  known  beings,  with 
modes  of  action,  with  properties  dis- 
tinct from  all  other  bodies;  because  he 
has  emancipated  this  mind  from  phys- 
ical laws,  in  order  to  submit  it  to  capri- 
cious laws  derived  from  imaginary  re- 
gions. Metaphysicians,  seized  upon 
these  gratuitous  suppositions,  and  by 
dint  of  subtilizing  them,  have  rendered 


*  Sallust  says,  Nemo  gratuito  malus  est. 
We  can  say  in  the  same  manner.  Nemo  gra, 
tuito  bonus  eat. 


160 


REMEDIES  FOR  THE  EVILS    OF  MAN. 


them  completely  unintelligible.  These 
moralists  have  not  perceived,  that  mo- 
tion is  essential  to  the  mind  as  well  as 
to  the  living  body ;  that  both  the  one 
and  the  other  are  never  moved  but  by 
material,  by  physical  objects ;  that  the 
wants  of  each  regenerate  themselves 
unceasingly ;  that  the  wants  of  the 
mind,  as  well  as  those  of  the  body,  are 
purely  physical ;  that  the  most  inti- 
mate, the  most  constant  connexion 
subsists  between  the  mind  and  the 
body,  or  rather  they  have  been  unwil- 
ling to  allow,  that  they  are  only  the 
same  thing  considered  under  different 
points  of  view.  Obstinate  in  their 
supernatural  or  unintelligible  opinions, 
they  have  refused  to  open  their  eyes, 
which  would  have  convinced  them, 
that  the  body  in  suffering  rendered  the 
mind  miserable ;  that  the  mind  afflict- 
ed undermined  the  body  and  brought  it 
to  decay ;  that  both  the  pleasures  and 
agonies  of  the  mind,  have  an  influence 
over  the  body,  either  plunge  it  into 
sloth  or  give  it  activity :  they  have 
rather  chosen  to  believe,  that  the  mind 
draws  its  thoughts,  whether  pleasant 
or  gloomy,  from  its  own  peculiar  sour- 
ces ;  while  the  fact  is,  that  it  derives 
its  ideas  only  from  material  objects, 
that  strike  on  the  physical  organs  ;  that 
it  is  neither  determined  to  gayety  nor 
led  on  to  sorrow,  but  by  the  actual 
state,  whether  permanent  or  transitory, 
in  which  the  fluids  and  solids  of  the 
body  are  found.  In  short,  they  have 
been  loath  to  acknowledge,  that  the 
mind,  purely  passive,  undergoes  the! 
same  changes  which  the  body  experi- 
ences ;  that  it  is  only  moved  by  its  in- 
tervention, acts  only  by  its  assistance,; 
receives  its  sensations,  its  perceptions,; 
forms  its  ideas,  derives  either  its  happi- 
ness, or  its  misery,  from  physical  ob- 
jects, through  the  medium  of  the  or-; 
gang  of  which  the  body  is  composed, ; 
frequently  without  its  own  cognizance, ( 
and  often  in  despite  of  itself. 

By  a  consequence  of  these  opinions, 
connected  with  marvellous  systems,  or 
systems  invented  to  justify  them,  they 
have  supposed  the  human  mind  to  be 
a  free  agent ;  that  is  to  say  that  it  has 
the  faculty  of  moving  itself — that  it 
enjoys  the  privilege  of  acting  indepen- 
dent of  the  impulse  received  from  ex- 
terior objects  through  the  organs  of  the 
body ;  that  regardless  of  these  impul- 


sions, it  can  even  resist  them,  and  fol- 
low its  own  direction  by  its  own  ener- 
gies; that  it  is  not  only  different  in  its 
nature  from  all  other  beings,  but  has 
also  a  separate  mode  of  action  ;  in  oth- 
er words,  that  it  is  an  isolated  point, 
which  is  not  submitted  to  that  uninter- 
rupted chain  of  motion,  which  bodies 
communicate  to  each  other  in  nature 
whose  parts  are  always  in  action. — 
Smitten  with  their  sublime  notions, 
these  speculators  were  not  aware,  that 
in  thus  distinguishing  the  soul  or  mind, 
from  the  body  and  from  all  known  be- 
ings, they  rendered  it  an  impossibility 
to  form  any  true  idea  of  it ;  they  were 
unwilling  to  perceive  the  perfect  anal- 
ogy which  is  found  between  the  man- 
ner of  the  mind's  action,  and  that  by 
which  the  body  is  affected ;  they  shut 
their  eyes  to  the  necessary  and  contin- 
ual correspondence  which  is  found  be- 
tween the  mind  and  the  body  ;  they 
would  not  see  that  like  the  body  it  is 
subjected  to  the  motion  of  attraction 
and  repulsion,  which  is  ascribable  to 
qualities  inherent  in  tho^e  physical 
substances  which  give  play  to  the  or- 
gans of  the  body;  that  the  volition  of 
its  will,  the  activity  of  its  passions, 
the  continual  regeneration  of  its  de- 
sires, are  nevermore  than  consequences 
of  that  activity  which  is  produced  on 
the  body  by  material  objects  which  are 
not  under  its  controul,  and  that  these 
objects  render  it  either  happy  or  miser- 
able, active  or  languishing,  contented 
or  discontented,  in  despite  of  itself  and 
of  all  the  efforts  it  is  capable  of  making 
to  render  it  otherwise  :  they  have  rath- 
er chosen  to  seek  in  the  heavens  for 
fictitious  powers  to  set  it  in  motion ; 
they  have  held  forth  to  man  only  ima- 
ginary interests  :  under  the  pretext  of 
procuring  for  him  an  ideal  happiness, 
he  has  been  prevented  from  labouring 
to  his  true  felicity,  which  has  been  stu- 
diously withheld  from  his  knowledge: 
his  regards  have  been  fixed  upon  the 
heavens,  that  he  might  lose  sight  of  the 
earth :  truth  has  been  concealed  from 
him,  and  'it  has  been  pretended  he 
would  be  rendered  happy  by  dint  of  ter- 
rours,  by  means  of  phantoms,  and  of 
chimeras.  In  short,  hoodwinked  and 
blind,  he  was  only  guided  through  the 
flexuous  paths  of  life  by  men  as  blind 
as  himself,  where  both  the  one  and  the 
other  were  lost  in  the  maze. 


REMEDIES   FOR  THE  EVILS    OF    MAN. 


161 


From  every  thing  which  has  been 
hitherto  said,  it  evidently  results  that 
all  the  errours  of  mankind,  of  what- 
ever nature  they  may  be,  arise  from 
man's  having  renounced  reason,  quit- 
ted experience,  and  refused  the  evi- 
dence of  his  senses,  that  he  in 
guided  by  imagination,  frequently  de- 
ceitful, and  by  authority,  always  suspi- 
cious. Man  will  ever  mistake  his  true 
happiness,  as  long  as  he  neglects  to 
study  nature,  to  investigate  her  immu- 
table laws,  to  seek  in  her  alone  the 
remedies  for  those  evils  which  are  the 
consequence  of  his  present  errours : 
he  will  be  an  enigma  to  himself,  as 
long  as  he  shall  believe  himself  double, 
and  that  he  is  moved  by  an  inconceiv- 
able power,  of  the  laws  and  nature  of 
which  he  is  ignorant.  His  intellectual 
as  well  as  his  moral  faculties  will  re- 
main unintelligible  to  him  if  he  does 
not  contemplate  them  with  the  same 
eyes  as  he  does  his  corporeal  qualities, 
and  does  not.  view  them  as  submitted 
in  every  thing  to  the  same  regulations. 
The  system  of  his  pretended  free 
agency  is  without  support ;  experience 
contradicts  it  every  instant,  and  proves 
that  he  never  ceases  to  be  under  the 
influence  of  necessity  in  all  his  ac- 
tions ;  this  truth,  far  from  being  dan- 
gerous to  man,  far  from  being  destruc- 
tive of  his  morals,  furnishes  him  with 
their  true  basis,  by  making  him  feel 
the  necessity  of  those  relations  which 
subsist  between  sensible  beings  united 
in  society,  who  have  congregated  with 
a  view  of  uniting  their  common  efforts 
for  their  reciprocal  felicity.  From  the 
necessity  of  these  relations,  spring  the 
necessity  of  his  duties  ;  these  point  out 
to  him  the  sentiments  of  love  which 
he  should  accord  to  virtuous  conduct, 
or  that  aversion  he  should  have  for 
what  is  vicious.  From  hence  the  true 
foundation  of  moral  obligation,  will 
be  obvious,  which  is  only  the  necessity 
of  taking  means  to  obtain  the  end  man 
proposes  to  himself  by  uniting  in  so- 
ciety, in  which  each  individual  for  his 
own  peculiar  interest,  his  own  particu- 
lar happiness,  his  own  personal  secu- 
rity, is  obliged  to  display  and  to  hold  a 
conduct  suitable  to  the  preservation  of 
the  community,  and  to  contribute  by 
his  actions  to  the  happiness  of  the 
whole.  In  a  word,  it  is  upon  the  ne- 
cessary action  and  reaction  of  the  hu- 
No.  VI.— 21 


man  will,  upon  the  necessary  attrac- 
tion and  repulsion  of  man's  mind,  that 
all  his  morals  are  bottomed :  it  is  the 
unison  of  his  will,  the  concert  of  his 
actions,  that  maintain  society :  it  is 
rendered  miserable  by  his  discordance ; 
it  is  dissolved  by  his  want  of  union. 

From  what  has  been  said  it  may  be 
concluded,  that  the  names  under  which 
man  has  designated  the  concealed 
causes  acting  in  nature,  and  their  vari- 
ous effects,  are  never  more  than  neces- 
sity considered  under  different  points 
of  view.  It  will  be  found,  that  what 
he  calls  order,  is  a. necessary  conse- 
quence of  causes  and  effects,  of  which 
he  sees,  or  believes  he  sees,  the  entire 
connexion,  the  complete  routine,  and 
which  pleases  him  as  a  whole  when 
he  finds  it  conformable  to  his  existence. 
In  like  manner  it  will  be  seen  that 
what  he  calls  confusion,  is  a  conse- 
quence of  like  necessary  causes  and 
effects,  which  he  thinks  unfavourable 
to  himself,  or  but  little  suitable  to  his 
being.  He  has  designated  by  the 
name  of  intelligence,  those  necessary 
causes  that  necessarily  operate  the 
chain  of  events  which  he  comprises 
under  the  term  order.  He  has  called 
divinity,  those  necessary  but  invisible 
causes  which  give  play  to  nature,  in 
which  every  thing  acts  according  to 
immutable  and  necessary  laws :  des- 
tiny or  fatality,  the  necessary  connex- 
ion of  those  unknown  causes  and  ef- 
fects which  he  beholds  in  the  world : 
chance,  those  effects  which  he  is  not 
able  to  foresee,  or  of  which  he  ignores 
the  necessary  connexion  with  their 
causes.  Finally,  intellectual  and  mo- 
ral faculties,  those  effects  and  those 
modifications  necessary  to  an  organiz- 
ed being,  whom  he  has  supposed  to  be 
moved  by  an  inconceivable  agent,  that 
he  has  believed  distinguished  from  his 
body,  of  a  nature  totally  different  from 
it,  and  which  he  has  designated  by  the 
word  soul.  In  consequence,  he  has 
believed  this  agent  immortal,  and  not 
dissoluble  like  the  body. 

It  has  been  shown  that  the  marvel- 
lous doctrine  of  another  life,  is  founded 
upon  gratuitous  suppositions,  contra- 
dicted by  reflection.  It  has  been  prov- 
ed, that  the  hypothesis  is  not  only  use- 
less to  man's  morals,  but  again,  that  it 
is  calculated  to  palsy  his  exertions,  to 
divert  him  from  actively  pursuing  the 


162 


REMEDIES   FOR  THE  EVILS   OP  MAX. 


true  road  to  his  own  happiness,  to  fill 
him  with  romantic  caprices,  and  to  in- 
ebriate him  with  opinions  prejudicial 
to  his  tranquillity ;  in  short,  to  lull  to 
slumber  the  vigilance  of  legislators,  by 
dispensing  them  from  giving  to  educa- 
tion, to  the  institutions,  to  the  laws  of 
society,  all  that  attention  which  it  is  the 
duty  and  for  his  interest  they  should 
bestow.  It  must  have  been  felt,  that 
politics  has  unaccountably  rested  itself 
upon  opinions  little  capable  of  satisfy- 
ing those  passions  which  every  thing 
conspires  to  kindle  in  the  heart  of  man, 
who  ceases  to  view  the  future,  while 
the  present  seduces  and  hurries  him 
along.  It  has  been  shown,  that  con- 
tempt of  death  is  an  advantageous  sen- 
timent, calculated  to  inspire  man's 
mind  with  courage  to  undertake  that 
which  may  be  truly  useful  to  society. 
In  short,  from  what  has  preceded,  it 
will  be  obvious  what  is  competent  to 
conduct  man  to  happiness,  and  also 
what  are  the  obstacles  that  errour  op- 
poses to  his  felicity. 

Let  us  not  then  be  accused  of  demo- 
lishing without  rebuilding,  with  com- 
bating errour  without  substituting  truth, 
with  sapping  at  one  and  the  same  time 
the  foundations  of  religion  and  of  sound 
morals.  The  last  is  necessary  to  man ; 
it  is  founded  upon  his  nature ;  its  du- 
ties are  certain,  they  must  last  as  long 
as  the  human  race  remains ;  it  imposes 
obligations  on  him,  because,  without 
it,  neither  individuals  nor  society  could 
be  able  to  subsist,  either  obtain  or  en- 
joy those  advantages  which  nature  ob- 
liges them  to  desire. 

Listen  then,  O  man !  to  those  morals 
which  are  established  upon  experience 
and  upon  the  necessity  of  things ;  do 
not  lend  thine  ear  to  those  superstitions 
founded  upon  reveries,  imposture,  and 
the  capricious  whims  of  a  disordered 
imagination.  Follow  the  lessons  of 
those  humane  and  gentle  morals,  which 
conduct  man  to  virtue  by  the  path  of 
happiness :  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  ineffi- 
cacious cries  of  religion  which  ren- 
ders man  really  unhappy ;  which  can 
never  make  him  reverence  virtue,  which 
it  paints  in  hideous  and  hateful  colours ; 
in  short,  let  him  see  if  reason,  without 
the  assistance  of  a  rival  who  prohibits 
its  use,  will  not  more  surely  conduct 
him  towards  that  great  end  which  is 
the  object  and  tendency  of  all  his  views. 


Indeed,  what  benefit  has  the  hurnarl 
race  hitherto  drawn  from  those  sublime 
and  supernatural  notions,  with  which 
theology  has  fed  mortals  during  so 
many  ages  ?  All  those  phantoms  con- 
jured up  by  ignorance  and  imagination ; 
all  those  hypotheses,  as  subtile  as  they 
are  irrational,  from  which  experience 
is  banished  ;  all  those  words  devoid  of 
meaning  with  which  languages  are 
crowded;  all  those  fantastical  hopes 
and  panic  terrours,  which  have  been 
brought  to  operate  on  the  will  of  man, 
have  they  rendered  man  better,  more 
enlightened  to  his  duties,  more  faithful 
in  their  performance  ?  Have  those 
marvellous  systems,  or  those  sophis- 
tical inventions  by  which  they  have 
been  supported,  carried  conviction  to 
his  mind,  reason  into  his  conduct,  vir- 
tue into  his  -heart?  Alas!  all  these 
things  have  done  nothing  more  than 
plunge  the  human  understanding  into 
that  darkness,  from  which  it  is  difficult 
to  be  withdrawn  ;  sown  in  man's  heart 
the  most  dangerous  errours,  of  which 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  divest  him ; 
given  birth  to  those  fatal  passions,  in 
which  may  be  found  the  true  source  of 
those  evils  with  which  his  species  is 
afflicted. 

Cease  then,  O  mortal !  to  let  thyself 
be  disturbed  with  phantoms,  which 
thine  own  imagination  or  imposture 
hath  created.  Renounce  thy  vague 
hopes ;  disengage  thyself  from  thine 
overwhelming  fears,  follow  without  in- 
quietude the  necessary  routine  which 
nature  has  marked  out  for  thee ;  strew 
the  road  with  flowers  if  thy  destiny 
permits  ;  remove,  if  thou  art  able,  the 
thorns  scattered  over  it.  Do  not  at- 
tempt to  plunge  thy  views  into  an  im- 
penetrable futurity  ;  its  obscurity  ought 
to  be  sufficient  to  prove  to  thee  that  it 
is  either  useless  or  dangerous  to  fa- 
thom. Only  think  then,  of  making 
thyself  happy  in  that  existence  which 
is  known  to  thee.  If  thou  wouldst 
preserve  thyself,  be  temperate,  mode- 
rate, and  reasonable :  if  thou  seekest 
to  render  thy  existence  durable,  be  not 
prodigal  of  pleasure.  Abstain  from 
every  thing  that  can  be  hurtful  to 
thyself,  or  to  others.  Be  truly  in- 
telligent ;  that  is  to  say,  learn  to  es- 
teem thyself,  to  preserve  thy  being,  to 
fulfil  that  end  which  at  each  moment 
thou  proposest  to  thyself.  Be  virtu- 


MAN'S  IDEAS   UPON  THE  DIVINITY. 


18S 


ous,  to  the  end  that  thou  mayest  ren- 
der thyself  solidly   happy,  that  thou 
mayest  enjoy  the  affections,  secure  the 
esteem,  partake  of  the  assistance  of 
those  beings  whom  nature  has   made 
necessary  to  thine  own  peculiar  feli- 
city.    Even  when  they  should  be  un- 
just, render  thyself   worthy  of  thine 
own  love  and  applause,  and  thou  shalt 
live  content,  thy  serenity  shall  not  be 
disturbed  :  the  end  of  thy  career  shall 
not  slander  a  life  which  will  be  ex- 
empted from  remorse.     Death  will  bi 
to  thee  the  door  to  a  new  existence, 
new  order  in  which  thou  wilt  be  sui 
mitted,  as  thou  art  at  present,  to  t 
eternal  laws  of  fate,  which   ordain; 
that  to  live  happy  here  below,  ih< 
must  make  others  happy.     Suffer  tl 
self,  then,  to  be  drawn  gently  along 
thy   journey,   until    thou   shalt   sleep 
peaceably  on  that  bosom  which  has 
given  thee  birth. 

For  thou,  wicked  unfortunate  !  who 
art  found  in  continual  contradiction 
with  thyself;  thou  whose  disorderly 
machine  can  neither  accord  with  thine 
own  peculiar  nature,  nor  with  that  of 
thine  associates ;  whatever  may  be 
thy  crimes,  whatever  may  be  thy  fears 
of  punishment  in  another  life,  thou  art 
at  least  already  cruelly  punished  in 
this  ?  Do  not  thy  follies,  thy  shame- 
ful habits,  thy  debaucheries,  damage 
thine  health  ?  Dost  thou  not  linger  out 
life  in  disgust,  fatigued  with  thine  own 
excesses  ?  Does  not  listlessness,  pun- 
ish thee  for  thy  satiated  passions  ? 
Has  not  thy  vigour,  thy  gayety,  already 
yielded  to  feebleness,  to  infirmities,  and 
to  regret?  Do  not  thy  vices  every  day 
dig  thy  grave?  Every  time  thou  hast 
stained  thyself  with  crime,  hast  thou 
dared  without  horrour  to  return  into  thy- 
self ?  Hast  thou  not  found  remorse, 
terrour,  shame,  established  in  thine 
heart?  Hast  thou  not  dreaded  the 
scrutiny  of  thy  fellow  man?  Hast 
thou  not  trembled  when  alone,  that 
truth,  so  terrible  for  thee,  should  unveil 
thy  dark  transgressions,  throw  into 
light  thine  enormous  iniquities  ?  Do 
not  then  any  longer  fear  to  part  with 
thine  existence,  it  will  at  least  put  an 
end  to  those  richly  merited  torments 
thou  hast  inflicted  on  thyself;  death, 
in  delivering  the  earth  from  an  incom- 
modious burden,  will  also  deliver  thee 
from  thy  most  cruel  enemy,  thyself. 


CHAPTER  XVin. 


The  Origin  of  Man's  Ideas  upon  the,  Divinity. 

IF  man  possessed  the  courage  to 
recur  to  the  source  of  those  opinions 
which  are  most  deeply  engraven  on  his 
brain ;  if  he  rendered  to  himself  a  faith- 
ful account  of  the  reasons  which  make 
him  hold  these  opinions  as  sacred ;  if  he 
coolly  examined  the  basis  of  his  hopes, 
the  foundation  of  his  fears,  he  would 
find  that  it  very  frequently  happens, 
those  objects,  or  those  ideas  which 
move  him  most  powerfully,  either  have 
no  real  existence,  are  words  devoid  of 
meaning,  or  phantoms  engendered  by 
a  disordered  imagination,  modified  by 
ignorance.  Distracted  by  contending 
passions,  which  prevent  him  from  either 
reasoning  justly,  or  consulting  expe- 
rience in  his  judgment,  his  intellectual 
faculties  are  thrown  into  confusion,  his 
ideas  bewildered. 

A  sensible  being  placed  in  a  nature 
where  every  part  is  in  motion,  has  va- 
rious feelings,  in  consequence  of  either 
the  agreeable  or  disagreeable  effects 
which  he  is  obliged  to  experience ;  in 
consequence  he  either  finds  himself 
happy  or  miserable ;  and,  according  to 
the  quality  of  the  sensations  excited 
in  him,  he  will  love  or  fear,  seek  after 
or  fly  from,  the  real  or  supposed  causes 
of  such  marked  effects  operated  on  his 
machine.  But  if  he  is  ignorant  or  des- 
titute of  experience,  he  will  frequently 
deceive  himself  as  to  these  causes; 
and  he  will  neither  have  a  true  know- 
ledge of  their  energy,  nor  a  clear  idea 
of  their  mode  of  acting:  thus  until  re- 
iterated experience  shall  have  formed 
his  judgment,  he  will  be  involved  in 
trouble  and  incertitude. 

Man  is  a  being  who  brings  with  him 
nothing  into  the  world,  save  an  apti- 
tude to  feeling  in  a  manner  more  or 
less  lively  according  to  his  individual 
organization :  he  has  no  knowledge  of 
any  of  the  causes  that  act  upon  him : 
by  degrees  his  faculty  of  feeling  dis- 
covers to  him  their  various  qualities  ; 
he  learns  to  judge  of  them;  time  fa- 
miliarizes him  with  their  properties; 
he  attaches  ideas  to  them,  according  to 
the  manner  in  which  they  have  affect- 
ed him ;  and  these  ideas  are  correct  or 
otherwise,  in  a  ratio  to  the  soundness 
of  his  organic  structure,  and  in  propor- 
tion as  these  organs  are  competent  to 


164 


THE  ORIGIN  OP  MAN'S  IDEAS 


afford  him  sure  and  reiterated  experi- 
ence. 

The  first  movements  of  man  are 
marked  by  his  wants ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  first  impulse  he  receives  is  to  con- 
serve his  existence ;  this  he  would  not 
be  able  to  maintain  without  the  concur- 
rence of  many  analogous  causes:  these 
wants  in  a  sensible  being  manifest 
themselves  by  a  general  languor,  a 
sinking,  a  confusion  in  his  machine, 
which  gives  him  the  consciousness  of 
a  painful  sensation :  this  derangement 
subsists  and  is  augmented,  until  the 
cause  suitable  to  remove  it  re-estab- 
lishes the  harmony  so  necessary  to  the 
existence  of  the  human  frame.  Want, 
therefore,  is  the  first  evil  man  experi- 
ences ;  nevertheless  it  is  requisite  to 
the  maintenance  of  his  existence.—- 
Was  it  not  for  this  derangement  of  his 
body,  which  obliges  him  to  furnish  its 
remedy,  he  would  not  be  warned  of  the 
necessity  of  preserving  the  existence 
he  has  received.  Without  wants  man 
would  be  an  insensible  machine,  simi- 
lar to  a  vegetable,  and  like  it,  he  would 
be  incapable  of  preserving  himself  or 
of  using  the  means  required  to  conserve 
his  being.  To  his  wants  are  to  be  as- 
cribed his  passions,  his  desires,  the  ex- 
ercise of  his  corporeal  and  intellectual 
faculties :  they  are  his  wants  that 
oblige  him  to  think,  to  will,  to  act ;  it  is 
to  satisfy  them,  or  rather  to  put  an  end 
to  the  painful  sensations  excited  by 
their  presence,  that,  according  to  his 
capacity,  to  the  energies  which  are  pe- 
culiar to  himself,  he  exerts  the  activity 
of  his  bodily  strength,  or  displays  the  ex- 
tensive powers  of  his  mind.  His  wants 
being  perpetual,  he  is  obliged  to  labour 
without  relaxation  to  procure  objects 
competent  to  satisfy  them.  In  a  word, 
it  is  owing  to  his  multiplied  wants  that 
man's  energy  is  kept  in  a  state  of  con- 
tinual activity :  as  soon  as  he  ceases 
to  have  wants,  he  falls  into  inaction— 
becomes  listless — declines  into  apathy 
— sinks  into  a  languor  that  is  incom- 
modious to  his  feelings  or  prejudicial 
to  his  existence :  this  lethargic  state  of 
weariness  lasts  until  new  wants  rouse 
his  dormant  faculties,  and  destroy  the 
sluggishness  to  which  he  had  become 
a  prey. 

From  hence  it  will  be  obvious  that 
evil  is  necessary  to  man ;  without  it  he 
would  neither  be  in  a  condition  to 


know  that  which  injures  him,  to  avoid 
its  presence,  or  to  seek  his  own  wel- 
fare :  he  would  differ  in  nothing  from 
insensible,  unorganized  beings,  if  those 
evanescent  evils  which  he  calls  wants, 
did  not  oblige  him  to  call  forth  his  fac- 
ulties, to  sef  his  energies  in  motion,  to 
cull  experience,  to  compare  objects,  to 
discriminate  them,  to  separate  those 
which  have  the  capabilities  to  injure 
him,  from  those  which  possess  the 
means  to  benefit  him.  In  short,  with- 
out evil  man  would  be  ignorant  of 
good ;  he  would  be  continually  exposed 
to  perish.  He  would  resemble  an  in- 
fant, who,  destitute-  of  experience,  runs 
the  risk  of  meeting  his  destruction  at 
every  step  he  takes :  he  would  be  un- 
able to  judge  of  any  thing ;  he  would 
have  no  preference ;  his  will  would  be 
without  volition,  he  would  be  destitute 
of  passions,  of  desire :  he  would  not 
revolt  at  the  most  disgusting  objects ; 
he  would  not  strive  to  put  them  away ; 
he  would  neither  have  stimuli  to  love, 
nor  motives  to  fear  any  thing;  he 
would  be  an  insensible  automaton — he 
would  no  longer  be  a  man. 

If  no  evil  had  existed  in  this  world, 
man  would  never  have  dreamt  of  the 
divinity.  If  nature  had  permitted  him 
easily  to  satisfy  all  his  regenerating 
wants,  if  she  had  given  him  none  but 
agreeable  sensations,  his  days  would 
have  uninterruptedly  rolled  on  in  one 
perpetual  uniformity,  and  he  would 
never  have  had  motives  to  search  after 
the  unknown  causes  of  things.  To 
meditate  is  pain :  therefore  man,  al- 
ways contented,  would  only  have  oc- 
cupied himself  with  satisfying  his 
wants,  with  enjoying  the  present,  with 
feeling  the  influence  of  objects  that 
would  unceasingly  warn  him  of  his 
existence  in  a  mode  that  he  must  ne- 
cessarily approve ;  nothing  would  alarm 
his  heart ;  every  thing  would  be  anal- 
ogous to  his  existence  :  he  would  nei- 
ther know  fear,  experience  distrust, 
nor  have  inquietude  for  the  future : 
these  feelings  can  only  be  the  conse- 
quence of  some  troublesome  sensation, 
which  must  have  anteriorly  affected 
him,  or  Avhich,  by  disturbing  the  har- 
mony of  his  machine,  has  interrupted 
the  course  of  his  happiness. 

Independent  of  those  wants  which 
in  man  renew  themselves  every  in- 
stant, and  which  he  frequently  finds  it 


UPON  THE  DIVINITY. 


165 


impossible  to  satisfy,  every  individual 
experiences  a  multiplicity  of  evils ;  he 
suffers  from  the  inclemency  of  the  sea- 
sons, he  pines  in  penury,  he  is  infected 
with  plague,  he  is  scourged  by  war,  he 
is  the  victim  of  famine,  he  is  afflicted 
with  disease,  he  is  the  sport  of  a  thou- 
sand accidents,  &c.  This  is  the  rea- 
son why  all  men  are  fearful  and  diffi- 
dent. The  knowledge  he  has  of  pain 
alarms  him  upon  all  unknown  causes, 
that  is  to  say,  upon  all  those  of  which 
he  has  not  yet  experienced  the  effect ; 
this  experience  made  with  precipita- 
tion, or  if  it  be  preferred,  by  instinct, 
places  him  on  his  guard  against  all 
those  objects  from  the  operation  of 
which  he  is  ignorant  what  conse- 
quences may  result  to  himself.  His 
inquietude  and  his  fears  keep  pace  with 
the  extent  of  the  disorder  which  these 
objects  produce  in  him  ;  they  are  mea- 
sured by  their  rarity,  that  is  to  say,  by 
the  inexperience  he  has  of  them ;  by 
his  natural  sensibility,  and  by  the  ar- 
dour of  his  imagination.  The  more 
ignorant  man  is,  the  less  experience  he 
has,  the  more  he  is  susceptible  of  fear ; 
solitude,  the  obscurity  of  a  forest,  si- 
lence, and  the  darkness  of  night,  the 
roaring  of  the  wind,  sudden,  confused 
noises,  are  objects  of  terrour  to  all  who 
are  unaccustomed  to  these  things.  The 
uninformed  man  is  a  child  whom  every 
thing  astonishes ;  but  his  alarms  dis- 
appear, or  diminish,  in  proportion  as 
experience  familiarizes  him,  more  or 
less,  with  natural  effects ;  his  fears  cease 
entirely,  as  soon  as  he  understands,  or 
believes  he  understands,  the  causes  that 
act,  and  when  he  knows  how  to  avoid 
their  effects.  But  if  he  cannot  penetrate 
the  causes  which  disturb  him,  or  by 
whom  he  suffers,  if  he  cannot  find  to 
what  account  to  place  the  confusion  he 
experiences,  his  inquietude  augments ; 
his  fears  redouble ;  his  imagination  leads 
him  astray;  it  exaggerates  his  evil; 
paints  in  a  disorderly  manner  these  un- 
known objects  of  his  terrour ;  then  ma- 
king an  analogy  between  them  and  those 
terrific  objects  with  whom  he  is  already 
acquainted,  he  suggests  to  himself  the 
means  he  usually  takes  to  mitigate 
their  anger ;  he  employs  similar  mea- 
sures to  soften  the  auger  and  to  disarm 
the  power  of  the  concealed  cause  which 
gives  birth  to  his  inquietudes,  and 
alarms  his  fears.  It  is  thus  his  weak- 


ness, aided  by  ignorance,  renders  him 
superstitious. 

There  are  very  few  men,  even  in  our 
own  day,  who  have  sufficiently  studied 
nature,  who  are  fully  apprised  of  phys- 
ical causes,  or  with  the  effects  they 
must  necessarily  produce.  This  igno- 
rance, without  doubt,  was  much  greater 
in  the  more  remote  ages  of  the  world, 
when  the  human  mind,  yet  in  its  in- 
fancy, had  not  collected  that  experi- 
ence, and  made  those  strides  towards 
improvement,  which  distinguishes  the 
present  from  the  past.  Savages  dis- 
persed, knew  the  course  of  nature  ei- 
ther very  imperfectly  or  not  at  all ;  soci- 
ety alone  perfects  human  knowledge : 
it  requires  not  only  multiplieo\but  com- 
bined efforts  to  unravel  the  secrets  of 
nature.  This  granted,  all  natural  causes 
were  mysteries  to  our  wandering  an- 
cestors ;  the  entire  of  nature  was  an 
enigma  to  them;  all  its  phenomena 
were  marvellous,  every  event  inspired 
terrour  to  beings  who  were  destitute 
of  experience;  almost  every  thing  they 
saw  must  have  appeared  to  them 
strange,  unusual,  contrary  to  their  idea 
of  the  order  of  things. 

It  cannot  then  furnish  matter  for  sur- 
prise, if  we  behold  men  in  the  present 
day  trembling  at  the  sight  of  those  ob- 
jects which  have  formerly  filled  their 
fathers  with  dismay.  Eclipses,  comets, 
meteors,  were  in  ancient  days,  subjects 
of  alarm  to  all  the  people  of  the  earth : 
these  effects  so  natural  in  the  eyes  of 
the  sound  philosopher,  who  has  by  de- 
grees fathomed  their  true  causes,  have 
yet  the  right  to  alarm  the  most  numer- 
ous and  the  least  instructed  part  of 
modern  nations.  The  people  of  the 
present  day,  as  well  as  their  ignorant 
ancestors,  find  something  marvellous 
and  supernatural  in  all  those  objects 
to  which  their  eyes  are  unaccustomed, 
or  in  all  those  unknown  causes  that 
act  with  a  force  of  which  their  mind 
has  no  idea  it  is  possible  the  known 
agents  are  capable.  The  ignorant  see 
wonders,  prodigies,  miracles,  in  all 
those  striking  effects  of  which  they  are 
unable  to  render  themselves  a  satisfac- 
tory account;  all  the  causes  which 
produce  them  they  think  supernatural; 
this,  however,  really  implies  nothing 
more  than  that  they  are  not  familiar  to 
them,  or  that  they  have  not  hitherto 
witnessed  natural  agents  whose  energy 


166 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MAN'S  IDEAS 


was  equal  to  the  production  of  effects 
so  astonishing  as  those  with  which 
their  sight  has  been  appalled. 

Besides  the  ordinary  phenomena  to 
which  nations  Avere  witnesses  without 
being  competent  to  unravel  the  causes, 
they  have,  in  times  very  remote  from 
ours,  experienced  calamities,  whether 
general  or  local,  which  filled  them  with 
the  most  cruel  inquietude,  and  plunged 
them  into  an  abyss  of  consternation. 
The  traditions  and  apnals  of  all  na- 
tions, recall,  even  at  this  day,  melan- 
choly events,  physical  disasters,  dread- 
ful catastrophes,  which  had  the  effect 
of  spreading  universal  terrour  among 
our  forefathers.  But  when  history 
should  be  silent  on  these  stupendous 
revolutions,  would  not  our  own  reflec- 
tion on  what  passes  under  our  eyes  be 
sufficient  to  convince  us,  that  all  parts 
of  our  globe  have  been,  and  following 
the  course  of  things,  Avill  necessarily 
be  again  violently  agitated,  overturn- 
ed, changed,  overflowed,  in  a  state  of 
conflagration?  Vast  continents  have 
been  inundated :  seas  breaking  their 
limits  have  usurped  the  dominion  of 
the  earth ;  at  length,  retiring,  these  wa- 
ters have  left  striking  proofs  of  their 
presence,  by  the  marine  vestiges  of 
shells,  skeletons  of  sea-fish,  &c.  which 
the  attentive  observer  meets  with  at 
every  step  in  the  bowels  of  those  fer- 
tile countries  Ave  no\v  inhabit.  Sub- 
terraneous fires  have  opened  to  them- 
selves the  most  frightful  volcanoes, 
Avhose  craters  frequently  issue  destruc- 
tion on  every  side.  In  short,  the  ele- 
ments unloosed,  have,  at  various  times^ 
disputed  among  themselves  the  empire 
of  our  globe ;  this  exhibits  evidence  of 
the  fact,  by  those  vast  heaps  of  Avreck, 
those  stupendous  ruins  spread  over  its 
surface.  What,  then,  must  have  been 
the  fears  of  mankind,  who  in  those 
countries  believed  he  beheld  the  entire 
of  nature  armed  against  his  peace,  and 
menacing  with  destruction  his  very 
abode  ?  What  must  have  been  the  in- 
quietude of  a  people  taken  thus  unpro- 
vided, Avho  fancied  they  saw  nature 
cruelly  labouring  to  their  annihilation? 
Who  beheld  a  Avorld  ready  to  be  dash- 
ed into  atoms,  the  earth  suddenly  rent 
asunder,  \vhose  ya\vning  chasm  was 
the  grave  of  large  cities,  Avhole  pro- 
vinces, entire  nations?  What  ideas 
must  mortals,  thus  overwhelmed  with 


terrour,  form  to  themselves  of  the  irre- 
sistible cause  that  could  produce  such 
extended  effects  ?  Without  doubt  they 
did  not  attribute  these  Avide-spreading 
calamities  to  nature ;  they  could  not 
suspect  she  \vas  the  author,  the  accom- 
plice of  the  confusion  she  herself  expe- 
rienced ;  they  did  not  see  that  these 
tremendous  revolutions,  these  over- 
pOAvering  disorders,  Avere  the  necessary 
result  of  her  immutable  laAvs,  and  that 
they  contributed  to  the  general  order 
by  which  she  subsists.* 

It  Avas  under  these  astounding  cir- 
cumstances, that  nations,  not  seeing 
on  this  mundane  ball  causes  sufficiently 
powerful  to  operate  the  gigantic  phe- 
nomena that  filled  their  minds  Avith 
dismay,  carried  their  streaming  and 
tremulous  eyes  tOAvards  heaven,  Avhere 
they  supposed  these  unknoAvn  agents, 
Avhose  unprovoked  enmity  destroyed 
their  earthly  felicity,  could  alone  re- 
side. 

It  was  in  the  lap  of  ignorance,  in  the  • 
season  of  alarm  and  calamity,  that 
mankind  ever  formed  his  first  notions 
of  the  Divinity.  From  hence  it  is 
obvious  that  his  ideas  on  this  subject 
are  to  be  suspected  as  false,  and  that 
they  are  ahvays  afflicting.  Indeed,  up- 
on whatever  part  of  our  sphere  AVC  cast 
our  eyes,  whether  it  be  upon  the  frozen 
climates  of  the  north,  upon  the  parch- 
ing regions  of  the  south,  or  under  the 
more  temperate  zones,  we  every  Avhere 
behold  the  people  Avhen  assailed  by 
misfortunes,  have  either  made  to  them- 
selves national  Gods,  or  else  have 
adopted  those  which  have  been  given 
them  by  their  conquerors ;  before  these 
beings,  either  of  their  own  creation  or 
adoption,  they  have  tremblingly  prostra- 
ted themselves  in  the  hour  of  calamity. 
The  idea  of  these  poAverful  agents,  Avas 
always  associated  with  that  of  terrour ; 
their  name  was  never  pronounced  Avith- 
out  recalling  to  man's  mind  either  his 
own  particular  calamities  or  those  of 
his  fathers  :  man  trembles  at  this  day, 
because  his  progenitors  have  trembled 


*  In  point  of  fact,  there  is  nothing  more 
surprising  in  the  inundation  of  large  portions 
of  the  earth,  in  the  swallowing  up  an  entire 
nation,  in  a  volcanic  conflagration,  spreading 
destruction  over  whole  provinces,  than  there 
is  in  a  stone  falling  to  the  earth,  or  the  death 
of  a  fly :  each  equally  has  its  spring  in  the 
necessity  of  things. 


UPON  THE  DIVINITY. 


167 


thousands  of  years  ago.  The  thought 
of  Gods  always  awakens  in  man  the 
most  afflicting  ideas:  if  he  recurred  to 
the  -source  of  his  actual  fears,  to  the 
commencement  of  those  melancholy 
impressions  that  stamp  themselves  in 
his  mind  when  his  name  is  pronounced, 
he  would  find  it  in  the  deluges,  in  the 
revolutions,  in  those  extended  disas- 
ters, that  have  at  various  times  destroy- 
ed large  portions  of  the  human  race, 
and  overwhelmed  with  dismay  those 
miserable  beings  who  escaped  the  de- 
struction of  the  earth;  these,  in  trans- 
mitting to  posterity  the  tradition  of 
such  afflicting  events,  have  also  trans- 
mitted to  him  their  fears,  and  those 
gloomy  ideas  which  their  bewildered 
imaginations,  coupled  with  their  bar- 
barous ignorance  of  natural  causes, 
had  formed  to  them  of  the  anger  of  their 
irritated  Gods,  to  which  their  alarm 
falsely  attributed  these  disasters.* 

If  the  Gods  of  nations  had  their  birth 
in  the  bosom  of  alarm,  it  was  again  in 
that  of  despair  that  each  individual 
formed  the  unknown  power  that  he 
made  exclusively  for  himself.  Ignor- 
ant of  physical  causes,  unpractised  in 
their  mode  of  action,  unaccustomed  to 
their  effects,  whenever  he  experienced 
any  serious  misfortune,  or  any  grievous 
sensation,  he  was  at  a  loss  how  to  ac- 
count for  it.  The  motion  which  in 
despite  of  himself  was  exqited  in  his 
machine,  his  diseases,  his  troubles,  his 
passions,  his  inquietude,  the  painful  al- 
terations his  frame  underwent  without 
his  being  able  to  fathom  the  true  caus- 
es, at  length  death,  of  which  the  as- 
pect is  so  formidable  to  a  being  strongly 

*  An  English  author  has  very  correctly  re- 
marked that  the  universal  deluge  has  been 
perhaps  no  less  fatal  to  the  moral  than  to  the 
physical  world,  the  human  brain  retaining  to 
this  day  an  impression  of  the  shock  it  men 
received.  See  Philemon  and  Hydaspis.  p. 
355. 

It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  the  deluge  men- 
tioned in  the  sacred  books  of  the  Jews  and 
Christians,  was  universal ;  but  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  all  parts  of  the  earth 
have  at  different  times  been  inundated.  This 
is  proved  by  the  uniform  tradition  of  every 
nation  in  the  world,  and  also  by  the  remains 
of  marine  bodies  found  in  every  country,  im- 
bedded to  greater  or  less  depths.  Yet  it  might 
be  possible  that  a  comet  coming  in  contact 
with  our  globe,  should  have  produced  such  a 
shock  as  to  submerge  at  once  whole  conti- 
nents J  for  this  a  miracle  was  not  necessary ! 


attached  to  existence,  were  effects  he 
looked  upon  as  either  supernatural,  or 
else  he  conceived  they  were  repugnant 
to  his  actual  nature;  he  attributed 
them  to  some  mighty  cause,  which 
maugre  all  his  efforts,  disposed  of  him 
at  each  moment.  His  imagination, 
thus  rendered  desperate  by  his  endur- 
ance of  evils  which  he  found  inevi- 
table, formed  to  him  those  phantoms 
before  whom  he  trembled  from  a  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  weakness.  It 
was  then  he  endeavoured  by  prostra- 
tion, by  sacrifices,  by  prayers,  to  disarm 
the  anger  of  these  imaginary  beings  to 
which  his  trepidation  had  given  birth ; 
whom  he  ignorantly  imagined  to  be 
the  cause  of  his  misery,  whom  his 
fancy  painted  to  him  as  endowed  with 
the  power  of  alleviating  his  sufferings  : 
it  was  then,  in  the  extremity  of  his 
grief,  in  the  exarcerbation  of  his  mind, 
weighed  down  with  misfortune,  that 
unhappy  man  fashioned  the  phantom 
God. 

Man  never  judges  of  those  objects 
of  which  he  is  ignorant  but  through 
the  medium  of  those  which  come  with- 
in his  knowledge :  thus  man,  taking 
himself  for  the  model,  ascribed  will, 
intelligence,  design,  projects,  passions ; 
in  a  word,  qualities  analogous  to  his  own, 
to  all  those  unknown  causes  of  which 
he  experienced  the  action.  As  soon 
as  a  visible  or  supposed  cause  affects 
him  in  an  agreeable  manner,  or  in  a 
mode  favourable  to  his  existence,- he 
concludes  it  to  be  good,  to  be  well  in- 
tentioned  towards  him:  on  the  con- 
trary, he  judges  all  those  to  be  bad  in 
their  nature,  and  to  have  the  intention 
of  injuring  him,  which  cause  him 
many  painful  sensations.  He  attrib- 
utes views,  plans,  a  system  of  conduct 
like  his  own,  to  every  thing  which  to 
his  limited  ideas  appears  of  itself  to 
produce  connected  effects,  to  act  with 
regularity,  to  constantly  operate  in  the 
same  manner,  that  uniformly  produces 
the  same  sensations  in  his  own  per- 
son. According  to  these  notions, 
which  he  always  borrows  from  himself, 
from  his  own  peculiar  mode  of  action, 
le  either  loves  or  fears  those  objects 
which  have  affected  him :  he  in  conse- 
quence approaches  them  with  confi- 
dence or  timidity ;  seeks  after  them  or 
lies  from  them  in  proportion  as  the 
feelings  they  have  excited  are  either 


163 


THE  ORIGIN   OF  MAN'S  IDEAS 


pleasant  or  painful.  He  presently  ad- 
dresses them ;  he  invokes  their  aid ; 
prays  to  them  for  succour;  conjures 
them  to  cease  his  afflictions ;  to  for- 
bear tormenting  him ;  as  he  finds  him- 
self sensible  to  presents,  pleased  with 
submission,  he  tries  to  win  them  to  his 
interests  by  humiliation,  by  sacrifices ; 
he  exercises  towards  them  the  hospi- 
tality he  himself  loves ;  he  gives  them 
an  asylum ;  he  builds  them  a  dwelling ; 
he  furnishes  them  with  all  those  things 
which  he  thinks  will  please  them  the 
most,  because  he  himself  places  the 
highest  value  on  them.  These  dispo- 
sitions enable  us  to  account  for  the  for- 
mation of  tutelary  Gods,  which  every 
man  makes  to  himself  in  savage  and 
unpolished  nations.  Thus  we  per- 
ceive that  weak  mortals,  regard  as  the 
arbiters  of  their  fate,  as  the  dispensers 
of  good  and  evil,  animals,  stones,  un- 
formed inanimate  substances,  which 
they  transform  into  Gods,  whom  they 
invest  with  intelligence,  whom  they 
clothe  with  desires,  and  to  whom  they 
give  volition. 

Another  disposition  which  serves  to 
deceive  the  savage  man,  which  will 
equally  deceive  those  whom  reason 
shall  not  enlighten  on  these  subjects, 
is  the  fortuitous  concurrence  of  certain 
effects,  with  causes  which  have  not 
produced  them,  or  the  co-existence  of 
these  effects  with  certain  causes  which 
have  not  the  slighest  connexion  Avith 
them.  Thus  the  savage  attributes 
bounty  or  the  will  to  render  him  ser- 
vice, to  any  object  whether  animate  or 
inanimate,  such  as  a  stone  of  a  certain 
form,  a  rock,  a  mountain,  a  tree,  a  ser- 
pent, an  owl,  &c.,  if  every  time  he  en- 
counters these  objects  in  a  certain  posi- 
tion, it  should  so  happen  that  he  is 
more  than  ordinarily  successful  in 
hunting,  that  he  should  take  an  unu- 
sual quantity  of  fish,  that  he  should  be 
victorious  in  war,  or  that  he  should 
compass  any  enterprise  Avhatever,  that 
he  may  at  that  moment  undertake. — 
The  same  savage  will  be  quite  as  gra- 
tuitous in  attaching  malice  or  wicked- 
ness to  either  the  same  object  in  a  dif- 
ferent position,  or  any  others  in  a  given 
posture,  which  may  have  met  his  eyes 
on  those  days  when  he  shall  have  suf- 
fered some  grievous  accident :  incapa- 
ble of  reasoning  he  connects  these 
effects  with  causes  that  are  entirely 


due  to  physical  causes,  to  necessary 
circumstances,  over  which  neither  him- 
self nor  his  omens  have  the  least  con- 
troul :  nevertheless,  he  finds  it  much 
easier  to  attribute  them  to  these  ima- 
ginary causes,  he  therefore  deifies 
them,  endows  them  with  passions, 
gives  them  design,  intelligence,  will, 
and  invests  them  with  supernatural 
powers.  The  savage  in  this  is  never 
more  than  an  infant  that  is  angry  with 
the  object  that  displeases  him,  just  like 
the  dog  who  gnaws  the  stone  by  which 
he  has  been  wounded,  without  recur- 
ring to  the  hand  by  which  it  was 
thrown. 

Such  is  the  foundation  of  man's 
faith  in  either  happy  or  unhappy 
omens :  devoid  of  experience,  he  looks 
upon  them  as  warnings  given  him  by 
his  ridiculous  Gods,  to  whom  he  attri- 
butes the  faculties  of  sagacity  and  fore- 
sight, of  which  he  is  himself  deficient. 
Ignorance,  when  involved  in  disaster, 
when  immersed  in  trouble,  believes  a 
stone,  a  reptile,  a  bird,  much  better  in- 
structed than  himself.  The  slender 
observation  of  the  ignorant  only  serves 
to  render  him  more  superstitious ;  he 
sees  certain  birds  announce  by  their 
flight,  by  their  cries,  certain  changes 
in  the  weather,  such  as  cold,  heat, 
rain,  storms;  he  beholds  at  certain 
periods  vapours  arise  from  the  bottom 
of  some  particular  caverns ;  there  needs 
nothing  further  to  impress  upon  him 
the  belief,  that  these  beings  possess  the 
knowledge  of  future  events  and  enjoy 
the  gifts  of  prophecy. 

If  by  degrees  experience  and  reflec- 
tion arrive  at  undeceiving  him  with  re- 
spect to  the  power,  the  intelligence, 
the  virtues,  actually  residing  in  these 
objects ;  if  he  at  least  supposes  them 
put  in  activity  by  some  secret,  some 
hidden  cause,  whose  instruments  they 
are,  to  this  concealed  agent  he  ad- 
dresses himself;  pays  him  his  vows ; 
implores  his  assistance ;  deprecates 
his  wrath ;  seeks  to  propitiate  him  to 
his  interests ;  is  willing  to  soften  his 
anger;  and  for  this  purpose  he  employs 
the  same  means  of  which  he  avails 
himself  either  to  appease  or  gain  over 
the  beings  of  his  own  species. 

Societies  in  their  origin,  seeing  them- 
selves frequently  afflicted  by  nature, 
supposed  that  either  the  elements,  or 
the  concealed  powers  who  regulated 


UPON  THE  DIVINITY. 


169 


them,  possessed  a  will,  views,  wants, 
desires,  similar  to  their  own.  From 
hence,  the  sacrifices  imagined  to  nou- 
rish them  ;  the  libations  poured  out  to 
them ;  the  steams,  the  incense  to  grat- 
ify their  olfactery  nerves.  They  be- 
lieved these  elements  or  their  irritated 
movers  were  to  be  appeased  like  irri- 
tated man,  by  prayers?  by  humiliation, 
by  presents.  Their  imagination  was 
ransacked  to  discover  the  presents  that 
would  be  most  acceptable  to  these 
mute  beings  who  did  not  make  known 
their  inclinations.  Thus  some  brought 
the  fruits  of  the  earth,  others  offered 
sheaves  of  corn ;  some  strewed  flow- 
ers over  their  fanes ;  some  decorated 
them  Avith  the  most  costly  jewels ; 
some  served  them  with  meats ;  others 
sacrificed  lambs,  heifers,  bulls.  As 
they  appeared  to  be  almost  always  irri- 
tated against  man,  they  stained  their 
altars  with  human  gore,  and  made  ob- 
lations of  young  children.  At  length, 
such  was  their  delirium,  such  the  wild- 
ness  of  their  imaginations,  that  they 
believed  it  impossible  to  appease  with 
oblations  from  the  earth  the  supposed 
agents  of  nature,  who  therefore  requir- 
ed the  sacrifice  of  a  God  !  It  was  pre- 
sumed that  an  infinite  being  could  not 
be  reconciled  to  the  human  race  but 
by  an  infinite  victim. 

The  old  men  as  having  the  most  ex- 
perience, were  usually  charged  with 
the  conduct  of  these  peace-offerings.* 
These  accompanied  them  with  cere- 
monies, instituted  rites,  used  precau- 
tions, adopted  formalities,  retraced  to 
their  fellow  citizens  the  notions  trans- 
mitted to  them  by  their  forefathers; 
collected  the  observations  made  by 
their  ancestors ;  repeated  the  fables 
they  had  received.  It  is  thus  the  sa- 
cerdotal order  was  established ;  thus 
that  public  worship  was  established; 

*  The  Greek  word  n/>sr$i/s%  from  whence 
is  derived  the  name  priest,  signifies  an  old  man. 
Men  have  always  felt  respect  for  that  which 
bore  the  character  of  antiquity,  as  they  have 
always  associated  with  it  the  idea  of  wisdom 
and  consummate  experience.  It  is  probably 
in  consequence  of  this  prejudice  that  men, 
when  in  doubt,  generally  prefer  the  authority 
of  antiquity  and  the  decisions  of  their  ances- 
tors to  those  of  good  sense  and  reason.  This 
we  see  every  day  in  matters  appertaining  to 
religion,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  pure 
and  undented  in  its  infancy,  although  this 
idea  is  certainly  without  foundation. 
No.  VI.— 22 


by  degrees  each  community  formed  a 
body  of  tenets  to  be  observed  by  the 
citizens ;  these  were  transmitted  from 
race  to  race.f  Such  were  the  unform- 
ed, the  precarious  elements  of  which 
rude  nations  every  where  availed  them- 
selves to  compose  their  religions :  they 
were  always  a  system  of  conduct  in- 
vented by  imagination,  conceived  in 
ignorance,  to  render  the  unknown  pow- 
ers, to  whom  they  believed  nature  was 
submitted,  favourable  to  their  views. 
Thus  some  irascible,  at  the  same  time 
placable  being,  was  always  chosen  for 
the  basis  of  the  adopted  religion;  it 
was  upon  these  puerile  tenets,  upon 
these  absurd  notions,  that  the  priests 
founded  their  rights ;  established  their 
authority  :  erected  temples,  raised  al- 
tars, loaded  them  with  wealth,  rested 
their  dogmas.  In  short,  it  was  from 
such  rude  foundations  that  arose  the 
structure  of  all  religions ;  under  which 
man  trembled  for  thousands  of  years  : 
and  although  these  religions  were  ori- 
ginally invented  by  savages,  they  still 
have  the  power  of  regulating  the  fate 
of  the  most  civilized  nations.  These 
systems,  so  ruinous  in  their  principles, 
have  been  variously  modified  by  the 
human  mind,  of  which  it  is  the  essence 
to  labour  incessantly  on  unknown  ob- 
jects ;  it  always  commences  by  attach- 
ing to  these  a  very  first-rate  impor- 
tance, which  it  afterwards  never  dares 
coolly  to  examine. 

t  At  length  it  was  deemed  sacrilege  even  to 
doubt  these  pandects  in  any  one  particular ; 
he  that  ventured  to  reason  upon  them,  was 
looked  upon  as  an  enemy  to  the  common- 
wealth; as  one  whose  impiety  drew  down 
upon  them  the  vengeance  of  these  adored  be- 
ings, to  which  alone  imagination  had  given 
birth.  Not  contented  with  adopting  rituals, 
with  following  the  ceremonies  invented  by 
themselves,  one  community  waged  war 
against  another,  to  oblige  it  to  receive  their 
particular  creeds;  which  the  knaves  who 
regulated  them,  declared  would  infallibly  win 
them  the  favour  of  their  tutelary  Deities: 
thus  very  often  to  conciliate  their  favour,  the 
victorious  party  immolated  on  the  altars  of 
their  Gods,  the  bodies  of  their  unhappy  cap- 
tives ;  and  frequently  they  carried  their  savage 
barbarity  the  length  of  exterminating  whole 
nations,  who  happened  to  worship  Gods 
different  from  their  own :  thus  it  frequently 
happened,  that  the  friends  of  the  serpent,  when 
victorious,  covered  his  altars  with  the  man- 
gled carcasses  of  the  worshippers  of  the  stone 
whom  the  fortune  of  war  had  placed  in  their 
hands. 


170 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  MAN'S  IDEAS 


Such  was  the  fate  of  man's  imagi- 
nation in  the  successive  ideas  which  he 
either  formed  to  himself,  or  which  he 
received  upon  the  divinity.  The  first 
theology  ot  man  was  grounded  on  fear, 
modelled  by  ignorance :  either  afflicted 
or  benefited  by  the  elements,  he  adored 
these  elements  themselves,  and  extend- 
ed his  reverence  to  every  material, 
coarse  object;  he  afterwards  rendered  his 
homage  to  the  agents  he  supposed  pre- 
siding over  these  elements ;  to  powerful 
genii ;  to  inferior  genii ;  to  heroes,  or  to 
men  endowed  with  great  qualities.  By 
dint  of  reflection,  he  believed  he  simplifi- 
ed the  thing  in  submitting  the  entire  of 
nature  to  a  single  agent — to  a  sovereign 
intelligence — to  a  spirit — to  a  univer- 
sal soul,  which  put  this  nature  and  its 
parts  in  motion.  In  recurring  from 
cause  to  cause,  man  finished  by  losing 
sight  of  every  thing,  and  in  this  obscu- 
rity, in  this  dark  abyss,  he  placed  his 
God,  and  formed  new  chimeras  which 
will  afflict  him  until  a  knowledge  of 
natural  causes  undeceives  him  with  re- 
gard to  those  phantoms  he  had  always 
so  stupidly  adored. 

If  a  faithful  account  was  rendered 
of  man's  ideas  upon  the  Divinity,  he 
would  be  obliged  to  acknowledge,  that 
the  word  God  has  only  been  used  to 
express  the  concealed,  remote,  un- 
known causes  of  the  effects  he  witness- 
ed ;  he  uses  this  term  only  when  the 
spring  of  natural  and  known  causes 
ceases  to  be  visible:  as  soon  as  he 
loses  the  thread  of  these  causes,  or  as 
soon  as  his  mind  can  no  longer  follow 
the  chain,  he  solves  the  difficulty,  ter- 
minates his  research,  by  ascribing  it  to 
God  ;  thus  giving  a  vague  definition  to 
an  unknown  cause,  at  which  either  his 
idleness,  or  his  limited  knoAvledge, 
obliges  him  to  stop.  When,  therefore, 
he  ascribes  to  God  the  production 
of  some  phenomenon,  of  which  his 
ignorance  precludes  him  from  unravel- 
ling the  true  cause,  does  he,  in  fact,  do 
any  thing  more  than  substitute  for  the 
darkness  of  his  own  mind,  a  sound  to 
which  he  has  been  accustomed  to  lis- 
ten with  reverential  awe  1  Ignorance 
may  be  said  to  be  the  inheritance  of 
the  generality  of  men ;  these  attribute 
to  the  Divinity  not  only  those  uncom- 
.  mon  effects  that  burst  upon  their  senses 
with  an  astounding  force,  but  also  the 
most  simple  events,  the  causes  of 


vhich  are  the  most  easy  to  be  knoWU 
o  whoever  shall  be  willing  to  meditate 
upon  them.*     In  short,  man  has   al- 
ways respected  those  unknown  causes, 
hose  surprising  effects  which  his  igno- 
ance  prevented  him  from  fathoming. 

It  remains,  then,  to  inquire,  if  man 
:an  reasonably  flatter  himself  with  ob- 
aining  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the 
)ower  of  nature  ;f  of  the  properties  of 

*  If  there  be  a  God,  can  it  be  possible  we 
are  acting  rationally,  eternally  to  make  him 
the  agent  of  our  stupidity,  of  our  sloth,  of  our 
want  of  information  on  natural  causes  ?  Do 
we,  in  fact,  pay  any  kind  of  adoration  to  this 
seing,  by  thus  bringing  him  forth  on  every 
trifling  occasion,  to  solve  the  difficulties  igno- 
rance throws  in  our  way  1  Of  whatever  na- 
ture the  Cause  of  causes  may  be,  it  is  evident 
to  the  slightest  reflection  that  it  has  been 
sedulous  to  conceal  itself  from  our  view; 
that  it  has  rendered  it  impossible  for  us  to 
have  the  least  acquaintance  with  it,  except 
through  the  medium  of  nature,  which  is  un- 
questionably competent  to  every  thing :  this 
is  the  rich  banquet  spread  before  man ;  he  is 
invited  to  partake,  with  a  welcome  he  has  no 
right  to  dispute ;  to  enjoy  therefore  is  to  obey ; 
to  be  happy  himself  is  to  make  others  happy  ; 
to  make  others  happy  is  to  be  virtuous  ;  to  be 
virtuous  he  must  revere  truth  :  to  know  what 
truth  is,  he  must  examine  with  caution,  scruti- 
nize with  severity,  every  opinion  he  adopts  ; 
this  granted,  is  it  not  insulting  to  a  God  to 
clothe  him  with  our  wayward  passions ;  to 
ascribe  to  him  designs  similar  to  our  narrow 
view  of  things  ;  to  give  him  our  filthy  desires ; 
to  suppose  he  can  be  guided  by  our  finite  con- 
ceptions ;  to  bring  him  on  a  level  with  frail 
humanity,  by  investing  him  with  our  quali- 
ties, however  much  we  may  exaggerate  them ; 
to  indulge  an  opinion  that  he  can  either  act  or 
think  as  we  do ;  to  imagine  he  can  in  any 
manner  resemble  such  a  feeble  plaything,  as 
is  the  greatest,  the  most  distinguished  man  1 
No !  it  is  to  fall  back  into  the  depth  of  Cim- 
merian darkness.  Let  man  therefore  sit  down 
cheerfully  to  the  feast ;  let  him  contentedly 
partake  of  what  he  finds ;  but  let  him  not 
worry  his  may-be- God  with  his  useless  pray- 
ers :  these  supplications  are,  in  fact,  at  once 
to  say,  that  with  our  limited  experience,  with 
our  slender  knowledge,  we  better  understand 
what  is  suitable  to  our  condition,  what  is  con- 
venient to  our  welfare,  than  the  Cause  of  all 
causes  who  has  left  us  in  the  hands  of  na- 
ture. 

t  How  many  discoveries  in  the  great  sci- 
ence of  natural  philosophy  has  mankind  pro- 
gressively made,  which  the  ignorant  prejudi- 
ces of  our  forefathers  on  their  first  announce- 
ment considered  as  impious,  as  displeasing  to 
the  Divinity,  as  heretical  profanations,  which 
could  only  be  expiated  by  the  sacrifice  of  the 
inquiring  individuals,  to  whose  labour  theirpoe- 
tenty  owes  such  an  infinity  of  gratitude.  Even 
in  modern  days  we  have  seen  a  Socrates  de- 


UPON  THE  DIVINITY. 


171 


the  beings  she  contains  ;  of  the  effects 
which  may  result  from  their  various 
combinations  1  Do  we  know  why  the 
magnet  attracts  iron?  Are  we  better 
acquainted  with  the  cause  of  polar  at- 
traction ?  Are  we  in  a  condition  to  ex- 
plain the  phenomenaof  light,  electricity, 
elasticity  1  Do  we  understand  the  me- 
chanism by  which  that  modification  of 
our  brain,  which  we  call  volition,  puts 
our  arm  or  our  legs  into  motion  1  Can 
we  render  to  ourselves  an  account  of 
the  manner  in  which  our  eyes  behold 
objects,  in  which  our  ears  receive 
sounds,  in  which  our  mind  conceives 
ideas  ?  If  then  we  are  incapable  of 
accounting  for  the  most  ordinary  phe- 
nomena, which  nature  daily  exhibits  to 
us,  by  what  chain  of  reasoning  do  we 
refuse  to  her  the  power  of  producing 
other  effects  equally  incomprehensible 
to  us  1  Shall  we  be  more  instructed, 
when  every  time  we  behold  an  effect 
of  which  we  are  not  in  a  capacity  to  de- 
velop the  cause,  we  may  idly  say, 
this  effect  is  produced  by  the  power,  by 
the  will  of  God  ? — that  is  to  say,  by 
-an  agent  of  which  we  have  no  know- 
ledge whatever,  and  of  which  we  are 
more  ignorant  than  of  natural  causes. 
Does  then,  a  sound,  to  which  we  can- 

stroyed,  a  Galileo  condemned,  whilst  multi- 
tudes of  other  benefactors  to  mankind  have 
been  held  in  contempt  by  their  uninformed 
contemporaries,  for  those  very  researches  into 
nature  which  the  present  generation  hold  in  the 
highest  veneration.  Whenever  ignorant  priests 
are  permitted  to  guide  the  opinions  of  na- 
tions, science  can  make  but  a  very  slender  pro- 
gress: natural  discoveries  will  he  always  held 
inimical  to  the  interest  of  bigoted  religious  men. 
It  may,  to  the  minds  of  infatuated  mortals, 
to  the  shallow  comprehension  of  prejudiced 
beings,  appear  very  pious  to  reply  on  every 
occasion,  our  God  do  this,  our  God  do  that ; 
but  to  the  contemplative  philosopher,  to  the 
man  of  reason,  it  will  never  be  convincing 
that  a  sound,  a  mere  word,  can  attach  the 
reason  of  things ;  can  have  more  than  a  fixed 
sense;  can  suffice  to  explain  problems.  The 
word  God  is  used  to  denote  the  impenetrable 
cause  of  those  effects  which  astonish  man- 
kind; which  man  is  not  competent  to  ex- 
plain. But  is  not  this  wilful  idleness  1  Is  it 
not  inconsistent  with  our  nature  thus  to  give 
the  answer  of  a  child  to  every  thing  we  do 
not  understand;  or  rather  which  our  own 
sloth,  or  our  own  want  of  industry  has  pre- 
vented us  from  knowing?  Ought  we  not 
rather  to  redouble  our  efforts  to  penetrate  the 
cause  of  those  phenomena  which  strike  our 
mind?  When  we  have  given  this  answer, 
what  have  we  said  1  Nothing  but  what  every 
one  knows. 


not  attach  any  fixed  sense,  suffice  to 
explain  problems  ?  Can  the  word  God 
signify  any  thing  else  but  the  impene- 
trable cause  of  those  effects  which  we 
cannot  explain  1 

When  we  shall  be  ingenuous  with 
ourselves,  we  shall  be  obliged  to  agree 
that  it  was  uniformly  the  ignorance  in 
which  our  ancestors  were  involved, 
their  want  of  knowledge  of  natural 
causes,  their  unenlightened  ideas  on 
the  powers  of  nature,  which  gave  birth 
to  the  Gods;  that  it  is,  again,  the  im- 
possibility which  the  greater  part  of 
mankind  find  to  withdraw  themselves 
out  of  this  ignorance,  the  difficulty  they 
consequently  find  to  form  to  them- 
selves simple  ideas  of  the  formation  of 
things,  the  labour  that  is  required  to 
discover  the  true  sources  of  those  events 
which  they  either  admire  or  fear,  that 
make  them  believe  the  idea  of  a  God 
is  necessary  to  enable  them  to  render 
an  account  of  those  phenomena,  the  true 
cause  of  Avhich  they  cannot  discover. 
Here,  without  doubt,  is  the  reason  they 
treat  all  those  as  irrational  who  do  not 
see  the  necessity  of  admitting  an  un- 
known agent,  or  some  secret  energy, 
which,  for  want  of  being  acquainted 
with  nature,  they  have  placed  out  of 
herself. 

The  phenomena  of  nature  necessa- 
rily breed  various  sentiments  in  man : 
some  he  thinks  favourable  to  him,  some 
prejudicial ;  some  excite  his  love,  his 
admiration,  his  gratitude;  others  fill 
him  with  trouble,  cause  aversion,  drive 
him  to  despair.  According  to  the  va- 
rious sensations  he  experiences,  he 
either  loves  or  fears  the  causes  to  which 
he  attributes  the  effects  which  produce 
in  him  these  different  passions :  these 
sentiments  are  commensurate  with  the 
effects  he  experiences;  his  admiration 
is  enhanced,  his  fears  are  augmented, 
in  the  same  ratio  as  the  phenomena 
which  strike  his  senses  are  more  or 
less  extensive,  more  or  less  irresistible 
or  interesting  to  him.  Man  necessa- 
rily makes  himself  the  centre  of  na- 
ture; indeed  he  can  only  judge  of 
things,  as  he  is  himself  affected  by 
them ;  he  can  only  love  that  which  he 
thinks  favourable  to  his  being;  he 
hates,  he  fears  every  thing  which  causes 
him  to  suffer:  in  short,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  calls  confusion  every  thing 
that  deranges  the  economy  of  his  ma- 


172 


THE  ORIGIN  OP  MAN'S   IDEAS 


chine,  and  he  believes  all  is  in  order, 
as  soon  as  he  experiences  nothing  but 
•what  is  suitable  to  his  peculiar  mode 
of  existence.  By  a  necessary  conse- 
quence of  these  ideas,  man  firmly  be- 
lieves that  the  entire  of  nature  -was 
made  for  him  alone;  that  it  was  only 
himself  which  she  had  in  view  in  all 
her  works ;  or  rather  that  the  powerful 
causes  to  which  this  nature  was  subor- 
dinate, had  only  for  object  man  and 
his  convenience,  in  all  the  effects  \vhich 
are  produced  in  the  universe. 

If  there  existed  on  this  earth  other 
thinking  "beings  besides  man,  they 
would  fall  exactly  into  similar  preju- 
dices with  himself;  it  is  a  sentiment 
founded  upon  that  predilection  which 
each  individual  necessarily  has  for 
himself;  a  predilection  that  will  sub- 
sist until  reason,  aided  by  experience, 
shall  have  rectified  his  errours. 

Thus,  whenever  man  is  contented, 
whenever  every  thing  is  in  order  with 
respect  to  himself,  he  either  admires 
or  loves  the  cause  to  which  he  believes 
he  is  indebted  for  his  welfare ;  when 
he  becomes  discontented  with  his  mode 
of  existence,  he  either  fears  or  hates 
the  cause  which  he  supposes  has  pro- 
duced these  afflicting  effects.  But  his 
welfare  confounds  itself  with  his  exist- 
ence ;  it  ceases  to  make  itself  felt  when 
it  has  become  habitual  and  of  long  con- 
tinuance ;  he  then  thinks  it  is  inherent 
to  his  essence ;  he  concludes  from  it 
that  he  is  formed  to  be  always  happy ; 
he  finds  it  natural  that  every  thing 
should  concur  to  the  maintenance  of 
his  being.  It  is  by  no  means  the  same 
when  he  experiences  a  mode  of  exist- 
ence that  is  displeasing  to  himself:  the 
man  who  suffers  is  quite  astonished  at 
the  change  which  has  taken  place  in 
his  machine ;  he  judges  it  to  be  contrary 
to  nature,  because  it  is  incommodious 
to  his  own  particular  nature ;  he  ima- 
gines those  events  by  which  he  is 
wounded,  to  be  contrary  to  the  order 
of  things  ;  he  believes  that  nature  is 
deranged  every  time  she  does  not  pro- 
cure for  him  that  mode  of  feeling  which 
is  suitable  to  his  ideas;  and  he  con- 
cludes from  these  suppositions  that 
nature,  or  the  agent  who  moves  her,  is 
irritated  against  him. 

It  is  thus  that  man,  almost  insensi- 
ble to  good,  feels  evil  in  a  very  lively 
manner;  the  first  he  believes  natural, 


the  other  he  thinks  opposed  to  nature, 
He  is  either  ignorant,  or  forgets,  that 
he  constitutes  part  of  a  whole,  formed 
by  the  assemblage  of  substances,  of 
which  some  are  analogous,  others  hete- 
rogeneous ;  that  the  various  beings  of 
which  nature  is  composed,  are  endowed 
with  a  variety  of  properties,  by  virtue 
of  which  they  act  diversely  on  the 
bodies  who  find  themselves  within  the 
sphere  of  their  action;  he  does  not 
perceive  that  these  beings,  destitute  of 
goodness,  devoid  of  malice,  act  only 
according  to  their  respective  essences 
and  the  laws  their  properties  impose 
upon  them,  without  being  in  a  capacity 
to  act  otherwise  than  they  do.  It  is, 
therefore,  for  want  of  being  acquainted 
with  these  things,  that  he  looks  upon 
the  author  of  nature,  as  the  cause  of 
those  evils  to  which  he  is  submitted, 
that  he  judges  him  to  be  wicked  or 
exasperated  against  him. 

T  he  fact  is,  man  believes  that  his  wel- 
fare is  a  debt  due  to  him  from  nature ; 
that  when  he  suffers  evil  she  does  him 
an  injustice ;  fully  persuaded  that  this 
nature  was  made  solely  for  himself,  he 
cannot  conceive  she  would  make  him 
suffer,  if  she  was  not  moved  thereto  by 
a  power  who  is  inimical  to  his  happi- 
ness— who  has  reasons  for  afflicting 
and  punishing  him.  From  hence  it 
will  be  obvious,  that  evil,  much  more 
than  good,  is  the  true  motive  of  those 
researches  which  man  has  made  con- 
cerning the  Divinity — of  those  ideas 
which  he  has  formed  of  himself — of  the 
conduct  he  has  held  towards  him.  The 
admiration  of  the  works  of  nature,  or 
the  acknowledgment  of  its  goodness, 
would  never  alone  have  determined 
the  human  species  to  recur  painfully 
by  thought  to  the  source  of  these 
things;  familiarized  at  once  with  all 
those  effects  which  are  favourable  to 
his  existence,  he  does  not  by  any  means 
give  himself  the  same  trouble  to  seek 
the  causes,  that  he  does  to  discover 
those  which  disquiet  him,  or  by  which 
he  is  afflicted.  Thus,  in  reflecting  up- 
on the  Divinity,  it  was  always  upon 
the  cause  of  his  evils  that  man  medi- 
tated; his  meditations  were  fruitless, 
because  the  evils  he  experiences,  as 
well  as  the  good  he  partakes,  are  equal- 
ly necessary  effects  of  natural  causes, 
to  which  his  mind  ought  rather  to  have 
bent  its  force,  than  to  have  invented 


UPON  THE  DIVINITY. 


173 


fictitious  causes  of  which  he  never 
could  form  to  himself  any  but  false 
ideas,  seeing  that  he  always  borrowed 
them  from  his  own  peculiar  manner  of 
existing,  and  feeling.  Obstinately  re- 
fusing to  see  any  thing  but  himself,  he 
never  became  acquainted  with  that  uni- 
versal nature  of  which  he  constitutes 
such  a  very  feeble  part. 

The  slightest  reflection,  however, 
would  have  been  sufficient  to  unde- 
ceive him  on  these  erroneous  ideas. 
Every  thing  tends  to  prove  that  good 
and  evil  are  modes  of  existence  that 
depend  upon  causes  by  which  a  man 
is  moved,  and  that  a  sensible  being  is 
obliged  to  experience  them.  In  a  na- 
ture composed  of  a  multitude  of  beings 
infinitely  varied,  the  shock  occasioned 
by  the  collision  of  discordant  matter 
must  necessarily  disturb  the  order,  de- 
range the  mode  of  existence  of  those 
beings  who  have  analogy  with  them  : 
these  act  in  every  thing  they  do  after 
certain  laws ;  the  good  or  evil,  there- 
fore, which  man  experiences,  are  ne- 
cessary consequences  of  the  qualities 
inherent  to  the  beings,  within  whose 
sphere  of  action  he  is  found.  Our 
birth,  which  we  call  a  benefit,  is  an 
effect  as  necessary  as  our  death,  which 
we  contemplate  as  an  injustice  of  fate : 
it  is  of  the  nature  of  all  analogous  beings 
to  unite  themselves  to  form  a  whole :  it 
is  of  the  nature  of  all  compound  beings 
to  be  destroyed,  or  to  dissolve  them- 
selves ;  some  maintain  their  union  for 
a  longer  period  than  others,  and  some 
disperse  very  quickly.  Every  being  in 
dissolving  itself  gives  birth  to  new 
beings ;  these  are  destroyed  in  their 
turn,  to  execute  eternally  the  immuta- 
ble laws  of  a  nature  that  only  exists 
by  the  continual  changes  that  all  its 
parts,  undergo.  Thus  nature  cannot 
be  accused  of  either  goodness  or  malice, 
since  every  thing  that  takes  place  in  it 
is  necessary — is  produced  by  an  inva- 
riable system,  to  which  every  other 
being,  as  well  as  herself,  is  eternally 
subjected.  The  same  igneous  mat- 
ter that  in  man  is  the  principle  of  life, 
frequently  becomes  the  principle  of  his 
destruction,  either  by  the  conflagration 
of  a  city,  or  the  explosion  of  a  volcano. 
The  aqueous  fluid  that  circulates 
through  his  machine,  so  essentially 
necessary  to  his  actual  existence,  fre- 
quently becomes  too  abundant,  and  ter- 


minates him  by  suffocation,  is  the  cause 
of  those  inundations  which  sometimes 
swallow  up  both  the  earth  and  its  in- 
habitants. The  air,  without  which  he 
is  not  able  to  respire,  is  the  cause  of 
those  hurricanes,  of  those  tempests, 
which  frequently  render  useless  the 
labour  of  mortals.  These  elements  are 
obliged  to  burst  their  bonds,  when  they 
are  combined  in  a  certain  manner,  and 
their  necessary  consequences  are  those 
ravages,  those  contagions,  those  fam- 
ines, those  diseases,  those  various 
scourges,  against  which  man,  with 
streaming  eyes  and  violent  emotions, 
vainly  implores  the  aid  of  those  pow- 
ers who  are  deaf  to  his  cries :  his  pray- 
ers are  never  granted  but  when  the 
same  necessity  which  afflicted  him,  the 
same  immutable  laws  which  over- 
whelmed him  with  trouble,  replaces 
things  in  the  order  he  finds  suitable  to 
his  species  :  a  relative  order  of  things 
which  was,  is,  and  always  will  be,  the 
only  standard  of  his  judgment. 

Man,  however,  made  no  such  simple 
reflections;  he  did  not  perceive  that 
every  thing  in  nature  acted  by  invari- 
able laws ;  he  continued  in  contempla- 
ting the  good  of  which  he  was  parta- 
ker as  a  favour,  and  the  evil  he  experi- 
enced, as  a  sign  of  anger  in  this  na- 
ture, which  he  supposed  to  be  anima- 
ted by  the  same  passions  as  himself; 
or  at  least  that  it  was  governed  by  a 
secret  agent  who  obliged  it  to  execute 
their  will,  that  was  sometimes  favour- 
able, sometimes  inimical  to  the  human 
species.  It  was  to  this  supposed  agent, 
with  whom  in  the  sunshine  of  his  pros- 
perity he  was  but  little  occupied,  that 
in  the  bosom  of  his  calamity  he  ad- 
dressed his  prayers ;  he  thanked  him, 
however,  for  his  favours,  fearing  lest 
his  ingratitude  might  further  provoke 
his  fury :  thus  when  assailed  by  disas- 
ter, when  afflicted  with  disease,  he  in- 
voked him  with  fervour :  'he  required 
him  to  change  in  his  favour  the  mode 
of  acting  which  was  the  very  essence 
of  beings ;  he  was  willing  that  to  make 
the  slightest  evil  that  he  experienced 
cease,  that  the  eternal  chain  of  things 
might  be  broken  or  arrested. 

It  was  upon  such  ridiculous  preten- 
sions, that  were  founded  those  fervent 
prayers,  \vhich  mortals,  almost  always 
discontented  with  their  fate,  and  never 
in  accord  in  their  respective  desires, 


174 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


addressed  to  the  Divinity.  They  were 
unceasingly  prostrate  before  the  ima- 
ginary power  whom  they  judged  had 
the  right  of  commanding  nature ; — 
whom  they  supposed  to  have  sufficient 
energy  to  divert  her  course ;  and  whom 
they  considered  to  possess  the  means 
to  make  her  subservient  to  his  particu- 
lar views ;  thus  each  hoped  by  pres- 
ents, by  humiliation,  to.  induce  him  to 
oblige  this  nature  to  satisfy  the  dis- 
cordant desires  of  their  race.  The 
sick  man,  expiring  in  his  bed,  asks  that 
the  humours  accumulated  in  his  body, 
should  in  an  instant  lose  those  proper- 
ties which  render  them  injurious  to  his 
existence ;  that,  by  an  act  of  his  puis- 
sance, his  God  should  renew  or  recre- 
ate the  springs  of  a  machine  worn  out 
by  infirmities.  The  cultivator  of  a  low 
swampy  country,  makes  complaint  of 
the  abundance  of  rain  with  which  the 
fields  are  inundated ;  whilst  the  inhabit- 
ant of  the  hill,  raises  his  thanks  for 
the  favours  he  receives,  •  and  solicits 
a  continuance  of  that  which  causes  the 
despair  of  his  neighbour.  In  this,  each 
is  willing  to  have  a  God  for  himself, 
and  asks  according  to  his  momentary 
caprices,  to  his  fluctuating  wants,  that 
the  invariable  essence  of  things  should 
be  continually  changed  in  his  favour. 

From  this  it  must  be  obvious,  that 
man  every  moment  asks  a  miracle  to 
be  wrought  in  his  support.  It  is  not, 
therefore,  at  all  surprising  that  he  dis- 
played such  ready  credulity,  that  he 
adopted  with  such  facility  the  relation 
of  the  marvellous  deeds  which  were 
universally  announced  to  him  as  the 
acts  of  the  power,  or  the  effects  of  the 
benevolence  of  the  Divinity,  and  as  the 
most  indubitable  proof  of  his  empire 
over  nature,  in  the  expectation,  that  if 
he  could  gain  them  over  to  his  interest, 
this  nature,  which  he  found  so  sullen, 
so  little  disposed  to  lend  herself  to  his 
views,  would  then  be  controuled  in  his 
own  favour.* 


*  It  was  easy  to  perceive  that  nature  was 
deaf,  or  at  least  that  it  never  interrupted  its 
march ;  therefore  men  deemed  it  their  interest 
to  submit  the  entire  of  nature  to  an  intelligent 
agent,  whom,  reasoning  by  analogy,  they 
supposed  better  disposed  to  listen  to  them 
than  an  insensible  nature  which  they  were 
not  able  to  controul.  Now  it  remains  to  be 
shown,  whether  the  selfish  interest  of  man  is 
a  proof  sufficient  of  the  existence  of  an  agent 


By  a  necessary  consequence  of  these 
ideas,  nature  was  despoiled  of  all  pow- 
er ;  she  was  contemplated  only  as  a 
passive  instrument,  who  acted  at  the 
will,  under  the  influence  of  the  numer- 
ous, all-powerful  agents  to  whom  she 
was  subordinate.  It  was  thus  for  want 
of  contemplating  nature  under  her  true 
point  of  view,  that  man  has  mistaken 
her  entirely,  that  he  believed  her  inca- 
pable of  producing  any  thing  by  her- 
self; that  he  ascribed  the  honour  of 
all  those  productions,  whether  advan- 
tageous or  disadvantageous  to  the  hu- 
man species,  to  fictitious  powers,  whom 
he  always  clothed  with  his  own  pecu- 
liar dispositions,  only  he  aggrandized 
their  force.  In  short  it  was  upon  the 
ruins  of  nature,  that  man  erected  the 
imaginary  colossus  of  the  Divinity. 

If  the  ignorance  of  nature  gave  birth 
to  the  Gods,  the  knowledge  of  nature 
is  calculated  to  destroy  them.  As  soon 
as  man  becomes  enlightened,  his  pow- 
ers augment,  his  resources  increase  in 
a  ratio  with  his  knowledge ;  the  sci- 
ences, the  protecting  arts,  industrious 
application,  furnish  him  assistance; 
experience  encourages  his  progress,  or 
procures  for  him  the  means  of  resist- 
ing the  efforts  of  many  causes,  which 
cease  to  alarm  him  as  soon  as  he  ob- 
tains a  correct  knowledge  of  them.  In 
a  word,  his  terrours  dissipate  in  pro- 
portion as  his  mind  becomes  enlight- 
ened. Man,  when  instructed,  ceases 
to  be  superstitious. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Of  Mythology,  and  Theology. 

THE  elements  of  nature  were,  as  we 
have  shown,  the  first  divinities  of 
man;  he  has  generally  commenced 
with  adoring  material  beings ;  each  in- 
dividual, as  we  have  already  said,  and 
as  may  be  still  seen  in  savage  nations, 
made  to  himself  a  particular  God  of 
some  physical  object,  which  he  sup- 
posed to  be  the  cause  of  those  events 
in  which  he  was  himself  interested; 
he  never  wandered  to  seek  out  of  visi- 
ble nature  the  source  either  of  what 
happened  to  himself,  or  of  those  phe- 

endqwed  with  intelligence — whether,  because 
a  thing  may  be  very  convenient,  it  follows 
that  it  is  so ! 


OP  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


175 


ftomena  to  wnich  he  was  a  witness.  As 
he  every  where  saw  only  material  ef- 
fects, he  attributed  them  to  causes  of 
the  same  genus ;  incapable  in  his  in- 
fancy of  those  profound  reveries,  of 
those  subtile  speculations,  which  are 
the  result  of  leisure,  he  did  not  im- 
agine any  cause  distinguished  from 
the  objects  that  met  his  sight,  nor  of 
any  essence  totally  different  from  every 
thing  he  beheld. 

The  observation  of  nature  was  the 
first  study  of  those  who  had  leisure  to 
meditate :  they  could  not  avoid  being 
struck  with  the  phenomena  of  the  visi- 
ble world.  The  rising  and  setting  of 
the  sun,  the  periodical  return'  of  the 
seasons,  the  variations  of  the  atmo- 
sphere, the  fertility  and  sterility  of  the 
earth,  the  advantages  of  irrigation,  the 
damages  caused  by  floods,  the  use- 
ful effects  of  fire,  the  terrible  conse- 
quences of  conflagration,  were  proper 
and  suitable  objects  to  occupy  their 
thoughts.  It  was  natural  for  them  to 
believe  that  those  beings  they  saw 
move  of  themselves,  acted  by  their 
own  peculiar  energies ;  according  as 
their  influence  over  the  inhabitants  of 
the  earth  was  either  favourable  or 
otherwise,  they  concluded  them  to  have 
either  the  power  to  injure  them,  or  the 
disposition  to  confer  benefits.  Those 
who  first  acquired  the  knowledge  of 
gaining  the  ascendency  over  man,  then 
savage,  wandering,  unpolished,  or  dis- 
persed in  woods,  with  but  little  attach- 
ment to  the  soil,  of  whicn  he  had  not 
yet  learned  to  reap  the  advantage,  were 
always  more  practised  observers — in- 
dividuals more  instructed  in  the  ways 
of  nature,  than  the  people,  or  rather 
the  scattered  hordes,  whom  they  found 
ignorant  and  destitute  of  experience. 
Their  superior  knowledge  placed  them 
in  a  capacity  to  render  them  services — 
to  discover  to  them  useful  inventions, 
which  attracted  the  confidence  of  the 
unhappy  beings  to  whom  they  came  to 
offer  an  assisting  hand ;  savages  who 
were  naked,  half  famished,  exposed  to 
the  injuries  of  the  weather,  and  to  the 
attacks  of  ferocious  beasts,  dispersed 
in  caverns,  scattered  in  forests,  occu- 
pied with  hunting,  painfully  labouring 
to  procure  themselves  a  very  precarious 
subsistence,  had  not  sufficient  leisure 
to  make  discoveries  calculated  to  facili- 
tate their  labour,  or  to  render  it  less  in- 


cessant. These  discoveries  are  gene- 
rally the  fruit  of  society :  isolated  be- 
ings, detached  families,  hardly  ever 
make  any  discoveries — scarcely  ever 
think  of  making  any.  The  savage  is 
a  being  who  lives  in  a  perpetual  state 
of  infancy,  who  never  reaches  ma- 
turity unless  some  one  comes  to  draw 
him  out  of  his  misery.  At  first  repul- 
sive, unsociable,  intractable,  he  by  de- 
grees familiarizes  himself  with  those 
who  render  him  service;  once  gained 
by  their  kindness,  he  readily  lends 
them  his  confidence  ;  in  the  end  he 
goes  the  length  of  sacrificing  to  them 
his  liberty. 

It  was  commonly  from  the  bosom  of 
civilized  nations  that  have  issued  those 
personages  who  have  carried  sociability, 
agriculture,  arts,  laws,  Gods,  religious 
opinions,  forms  of  worship,  to  those 
families  or  hordes  as  yet  scattered,  who 
were  not  formed  into  nations.  These 
softened  their  manners — gathered  them 
together — taught  them  to  reap  the  ad- 
vantages of  their  own  powers — to  ren- 
der each  other  reciprocal  assistance — 
to  satisfy  their  wants  with  greater  fa- 
cility. In  thus  rendering  their  exist- 
ence more  comfortable,  they  attracted 
their  love,  obtained  their  veneration, 
acquired  the  right  of  prescribing  opin- 
ions to  them,  made  them  adopt  such  as 
they  had  either  invented  themselves, 
or  else  drawn  up  in  the  civilized  coun- 
tries from  whence  they  came.  History 
points  out  to  us  the  most  famous  legis- 
lators as  men,  who,  enriched  with  use- 
ful knowledge  they  had  gleaned  in  the 
bosom  of  polished  nations,  carried  to 
savages  without  industry  and  needing 
assistance,  those  arts,  of  which,  until 
then,  these  rude  people  were  ignorant : 
such  were  the  Bacchus's,  the  Orphe- 
us's,  the  Triptolemus's,  the  Moses's, 
the  Numas,  the  Zamolixis's ;  in  short, 
all  those  who  first  gave  to  nations  their 
Gods — their  worship — the  rudiments 
of  agriculture,  of  science,  of  theology, 
of  jurisprudence,  of  mysteries,  &c.  It 
will  perhaps  be  inquired,  if  those  na- 
tions which  at  the  present  day  we  see 
assembled,  were  all  originally  dispers- 
ed? We  reply,  that  this  dispersion 
may  have  been  produced  at  various 
times,  by  those  terrible  revolutions,  of 
which  it  has  before  been  remarked  our 
globe  has  more  than  once  been  the  the- 
atre, in  times  so  remote  that  history 


176 


OP  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


has  not  been  able  to  transmit  to  us  the 
detail.  Perhaps  the  approach  of  more 
than  one  comet  may  have  produced  on 
our  earth  several  universal  ravages, 
which  have  at  each  time  annihilated 
the  greater  portion  of  the  human  spe- 
cies. Those  who  were  able  to  escape 
from  the  ruin  of  the  world,  filled  with 
consternation,  plunged  in  misery,  were 
but  little  conditioned  to  preserve  to 
their  posterity  a  knowledge,  effaced  by 
those  misfortunes  of  which  they  had 
been  both  the  victims  and  the  wit- 
nesses: overwhelmed  with  Dismay, 
trembling  with  fear,  they  were  not  able 
to  hand  down  the  history  of  their 
frightful  adventures,  except  by  obscure 
traditions ;  much  less  to  transmit  to  us 
the  opinions,  the  systems,  the  arts,  the 
sciences,  anterior  to  these  revolutions 
of  our  sphere.  There  have  been  per- 
haps men  upon  the  earth  from  all  eter- 
nity ;  but  at  different  periods  they  may 
have  been  nearly  annihilated,  together 
with  their  monuments,  their  sciences, 
and  their  arts;  those  who  outlived 
these  periodical  revolutions,  each  time 
formed  a  new  race  of  men,  who  by  dint 
of  time,  labour,  and  experience,  have 
by  degrees  withdrawn  from  oblivion 
the  inventions  of  the  primitive  races. 
It  is,  perhaps,  to  these  periodical  revo- 
lutions of  the  human  species,  that  is 
to  be  ascribed  the  profound  ignorance 
in  which  we  see  man  plunged  upon 
those  objects  that  are  the  most  interest- 
ing to  him.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  true 
source  of  the  imperfection  of  his  know- 
ledge— of  the  vices  of  his  political  and 
religious  institutions  over  which  ter- 
rour  has  always  presided  ;  here,  in  all 
probability,  is  the  cause  of  that  puerile 
inexperience,  of  those  jejune  prejudices, 
which  every  where  keep  man  in  a  state 
of  infancy,  and  which  render  him  so 
little  capable  of  either  listening  to  rea- 
son or  of  consulting  truth.  To  judge 
by  the  slowness  of  his  progress,  by  the 
feebleness  of  his  advance,  in  a  number 
of  respects,  we  should  be  inclined  to 
say,  the  human  race  has  either  just 
quitted  its  cradle,  or  that  he  was  never 
destined  to  attain  the  age  of  virility  or 
of  reason.* 


*  These  hypotheses  will  unquestionably  ap- 
pear bold  to  those  who  have  not  sufficiently 
medjtated  on  nature,  but  to  the  philosophic 
inquirer  they  are  by  no  means  inconsistent. 
There  may  have  not  only  have  been  one  gen- 


However  it  may  be  with  these  con- 
jectures, whether  the  human  race  may 
always  have  existed  upon  the  earth,  or 
whether  it  may  have  been  a  recent  pro- 

eral  deluge,  but  even  a  great  number  since 
the  existence  of  our  planet ;  this  globe  itself 
may  have  been  a  new  production  in  nature ; 
it  may  not  always  have  occupied  the  place  it 
does  at  present. — See  Ch.  VI.  Whatever  idea 
may  be  adopted  on  this  subject,  it  is  very  cer- 
tain that,  independent  of  those  exterior  causes 
which  are  competent  to  totally  change  its 
face,  as  the  impulse  of  a  comet  may  do,  this 
globe  contains  within  itself  a  cause  adequate 
to  alter  it  entirely,  since,  besides  the  diurnal 
and  sensible  motion  of  the  earth,  it  has  one 
extremely  slow,  almost  imperceptible,  by 
which  every  thing  must  eventually  be  chang- 
ed in  it :  this  is  the  motion  from  whence 
depends  the  precession  of  the  equinoctial 
points,  observed  by  Hipparchus  and  other 
mathematicians;  by  this  motion,  the  earth 
must  at  the  end  of  several  thousand  years 
change  totally:  this  motion  will  at  length 
cause  the  ocean  to  occupy  that  space  which 
at  present  forms  the  lands  or  continents. 
From  this  it  will  be  obvious  that  our  globe, 
as  well  as  all  the  beings  in  nature,  has  a  con- 
tinual disposition  to  change.  This  motion 
was  known  to  the  ancients,  and  was  what 
gave  rise  to  what  they  called  their  great  year, 
which  the  Egyptians  fixed  at  thirty-six  thou- 
sand, five  hundred  and  twenty-five  years :  the 
Sabines  at  thirty-six  thousand,  four  hundred 
and  twenty-five/whilst  others  have  extended 
it  to  one  hundred  thousand,  some  to  even  seven 
hundred  and  fifty-three  thousand  years. — 
Again,  to  those  general  revolutions  which  our 
planet  has  at  different  times  experienced,  may 
be  added  those  that  have  been  partial,  such 
as  inundations  of  the  sea,  earthquakes,  sub- 
terraneous conflagrations,  which  have  some- 
times had  the  effect  of  dispersing  particular 
nations,  and  to  make  them  forget  all  those 
sciences  with  which  they  were  "before  ac- 
quainted. It  is  also  probable  that  the  first 
volcanic  fires,  having  had  no  previous  vent, 
were  more  central,  and  greater  in  quantity, 
before  they  burst  the  crust  of  earth ;  as  the 
sea  washed  the  whole,  it  must  have  rapidly 
sunk  down  into  every  opening,  where,  falling 
on  the  boiling  lava,  it  was  instantly  expanded 
into  steam,  producing  irresistible  explosion; 
whence  it  is  reasonable  to  conclude,  that  the 
primeval  earthquakes  were  more  widely  ex- 
tended, and  of  much  greater  force,  than  those 
which  occur  in  our  days.  Other  vapours  may 
be  produced  by  intense  heat,  possessing  a 
much  greater  elasticity,  from  substances  that 
evaporate,  such  as  mercury,  diamonds,  &c. ; 
the  expansive  force  of  these  vapours  would 
be  much  greater  than  the  steam  of  water, 
even  at  rednot  heat ;  consequently  they  may 
have  had  sufficient  energy  to  raise  islands, 
continents,  or  even  to  nave  detached  the 
moon  from  the  earth ;  if  the  moon,  as  has 
been  supposed  by  some  philosophers,  were 
thrown  out  of  the  great  cavity  which  now 
contains  the  South  Sea  ;  the  immense  quan- 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


177 


duction  of  nature,*  it  is  extremely  easy 
to  recur  to  the  origin  of  many  existing 
nations  :  we  shall  find  them  always  in 
the  savage  state  ;  that  is  to  say,  com- 
posed of  wandering  hordes ;  these  were 
collected  together,  at  the  voice  of  some 
missionary  or  legislator,  from  whom 
they  received  benefits,  who  gave  them 
Gods,  opinions,  and  laws.  These  per- 
sonages, of  whom  the  people,  newly 
congregated,  readily  acknowledged  the 
superiority,  fixed  the  national  Gods, 
leaving  to  each  individual  those  which 
he  had  formed  to  himself,  according  to 
his  own  peculiar  ideas,  or  else  substi- 
tuting others  brought  from  those  re- 
gions from  whence  they  themselves 
had  emigrated. 

The  better  to  imprint  their  lessons 
on  the  minds  of  their  new  subjects, 
these  men  became  the  guides,  the 
priests,  the  sovereigns,  the  masters,  of 
these  infant  societies ;  they  spoke  to 

tity  of  water  flowing  in  from  the  original 
ocean,  and  which  then  covered  the  earth, 
would  much  contribute  to  leave  the  conti- 
nents and  islands,  which  might  be  raised  at 
the  same  time,  above  the  surface  of  the  water. 
In  later  days  we  have  accounts  of  huge 
stones  falling  from  the  firmament,  which  may 
have  been  thrown  by  explosion  from  some 
distant  earthquake,  without  having  been  im- 
pelled with  a  force  sufficient  to  cause  them  to 
circulate  round  the  earth,  and  thus  produce 
numerous  small  moons  or  satellites. 

*  It  may  be  that  the  larger  animals  we  now 
behold  were  originally  derived  from  the  small- 
est microscopic  ones,  who  have  increased  in 
bulk  with  the  progression  of  time,  or  that,  as 
the  Egyptian  philosophers  thought,  mankind 
were  originally  hermaphrodites,  who,  like  the 
aphis,  produced  the  sexual  distinction  after 
some  generations.  This  was  also  the  opinion 
of  Plato,  and  seems  to  have  been  that  of 
Moses,  who  was  educated  amongst  the  Egyp- 
tians, as  may  be  gathered  from  the  27th  and 
28th  verses  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis : 
"  So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in 
the  image  of  God  created  he  him  ;  male  and 
female  created  he  them.  And  God  blessed 
them,  and  God  said  unto  them,  be  fruitful  and 
multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue 
it :  and  have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the 
sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  eve- 
ry living  thing  that  moveth  upon  the  earth  :" 
it  is  not  therefore  presuming  too  much  to  sup- 
pose, as  the  Egyptians  were  a  nation  very 
fond  of  explaining  their  opinions  by  hierogly- 
phics, that  that  part  which  describes  Eve  as 
taken  out  of  Adam's  rib,  was  an  hieroglyphic 
emblem,  showing  '.hat  mankind  were  in  the 
primitive  state  of  both  sexes,  united,  who 
were  afterwards  divided  into  males  and 
females. 

No.  VI.— 23 


the  imagination  of  their  auditors. — 
Poetry,  by  its  images,  its  fictions,  its 
numbers,  its  rhyme,  its  harmony,  con- 
spired to  please  their  fancy,  and  to 
render  permanent  the  impressions  it 
made:  thus,  the  entire  of  nature,  as 
well  as  all  its  parts,  was  personified ; 
at  its  voice,  trees,  stones,  rocks,  earth, 
air,  fire,  water,  took  intelligence,  held 
conversation  with  man,  and  with  them- 
selves ;  the  elements  were  deified. — 
The  sky,  which,  according  to  the  then 
philosophy,  was  an  arched  concave, 
spreading  over  the  earth,  which  was 
supposed  to  be  a  level  plain,  was  itself 
made  a  God ;  Time,  under  the  name 
of  Saturn,  was  pictured  as  the  son  of 
heaven  ;f  the  igneous  matter,  the  ethe- 
real electric  fluid,  that  invisible  fire 
which  vivifies  nature,  that  penetrates 
all  beings,  that  fetilizes  the  earth, 
which  is  the  great  principle  of  motion, 
the  source  of  heat,  was  deified  under 
the  name  of  Jupiter :  his  combination 
with  every  being  in  nature  was  express- 
ed by  his  metamorphoses — by  the  fre- 
quent adulteries  imputed  to  him.  He 
was  armed  with  thunder,  to  indicate 
he  produced  meteors,  to  typify  the  elec- 
tric fluid  that  is  called  lightning.  He 
married  the  winds,  which  wefe  desig- 
nated under  the  name  of  Juno,  there- 
fore called  the  Goddess  of  the  Winds  ; 
their  nuptials  were  celebrated  with 


t  Saturn  was  represented  as  an  inexorable 
divinity — naturally  artful,  who  devoured  his 
own  children — who  revenged  the  anger  of  his 
mother  upon  his  father,  for  which  purpose 
she  armed  him  with  a  scythe,  formed  of  met- 
als drawn  from  her  own  bowels,  with  which 
he  struck  Ccelus,  in  the  act  of  uniting  him- 
self to  Thea,  and  so  mutilated  him  that  he 
was  ever  after  incapacitated  to  increase  the 
number  of  his  children :  he  was  said  to  have 
divided  the  throne  with  Janus,  king  of  Italy, 
whose  reign  seems  to  have  been  so  mild,  so 
beneficent,  that  it  was  called  the  golden 
ape;  human  victims  were  sacrificed  on  his 
altars,  until  abolished  by  Hercules,  who  sub- 
stituted small  images  of  clay.  Festivals  in 
honour  of  this  God,  called  Saturnalia,  were 
instituted  long  antecedent  to  the  foundation 
of  Rome :  they  were  celebrated  about  the 
middle  of  Dece.nber,  either  on  the  16th,  17th, 
or  18th ;  they  lasted  in  latter  times  several 
days,  originally  but  one.  Universal  liberty 
prevailed  at  the  celebration,  slaves  were  per- 
mitted to  ridicule  their  masters — to  speak 
freely  on  every  subject — no  criminals  were 
executed— war  never  declared;  the  priests 
made  their  human  offerings  with  their  heads 
i  uncovered ;  a  circumstance  peculiar  to  the 
I  Saturnalia,  not  adopted  at  other  festivals. 


178 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


great  solemnity.*  Thus,  following  the 
same  fictions,  the  sun,  that  beneficent 
star  which  has  such  a  marked  influence 
over  the  earth,  became  an  Osiris,  a 
Belus,  a  Mithras,  an  Adonis,  an  Apollo. 
Nature,  rendered  sorrowful  by  his  peri- 
odical absence,  was  an  Isis,  an  Astarte, 
a  Venus,  a  Cybele.f 

In  short,  every  thing  was  personified : 
the  sea  was  under  the  empire  of  Nep- 
tune 5  fire  was  adored  by  the  Egyp- 
tians under  the  name  of  Serapis ;  by 
the  Persians,  under  that  of  Ormus  or 
Oromaze  ;  and  by  the  Romans,  under 
that  of  Vesta  and  Vulcan. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  mythology  : 
it  may  be  said  to  be  the  daughter  of 
natural  philosophy,  embellished  by  po- 
etry, and  only  destined  to  describe  na- 
ture and  its  parts.  If  antiquity  is  con- 
sulted, it  will  be  perceived  without 
much  trouble,  that  those  famous  sages, 
those  legislators,  those  priests,  those 
conquerors,  who  were  the  instructers 

*  All  the  Gods,  the  entire  brute  creation, 
and  the  whole  of  mankind  attended  these 
nuptials,  except  one  young  woman  named 
Chelone,  who  laughed  at  the  ceremonies,  for 
which  impiety  she  was  changed  by  Mercury 
into  a  tortoise,  and  condemned  to  perpetual 
silence.  He  was  the  most  powerful  of  all 
the  Gods,  and  considered  as  the  king  and 
father  both  of  Gods  and  men:  his  worship 
was  very  extended,  performed  with  greater 
solemnity,  than  that  of  any  other  God.  Upon 
his  altars  smoked  goats,  sheep,  and  white 
bulls,  in  which  he  is  said  to  have  particularly 
delighted :  the  oak  was  rendered  sacred  to 
him,  because  he  taught  mankind  to  live  upon 
acorns  ;  he  had  many  oracles  where  his  pre- 
cepts were  delivered :  the  most  celebrated  of 
these  were  at  Dodona  and  Ammon  in  Libya ; 
He  was  supposed  to  be  invisible  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  earth ;  the  Lacedemonians 
erected  his  statue  with  four  heads,  thereby 
indicating  that  he  listened  readily  to  the  so- 
licitations of  every  quarter  of  the  earth. — 
Minerva  is  represented  as  having  no  mother, 
but  to  have  come  completely  armed  from  his 
brains,  when  his  head  was  opened  by  Vul- 
can ;  by  which  it  is  meant  to  infer  that  wis- 
dom is  the  result  of  this  ethereal  fluid. 

t  Astarte  had  a  magnificent  temple  at  Hie- 
ropolis,  served  by  three  hundred  priests,  who 
were  always  employed  in  offering  sacrifices. 
The  priests  of  Cybele,  called  Corybantes, 
also  Galli,  were  not  admitted  to  their  sacred 
functions  without  previous  mutilation.  In 
the  celebration  of  their  festivals  these  priests 
used  all  kinds  of  indecent  expressions,  beat 
drums,  cymbals,  and  behaved  just  like  mad- 
men :  his  worship  extended  all  over  Phrygia, 
and  was  established  in  Greece  under  the 
name  of  Eleusinian  mysteries. 


of  infant  nations,  themselves  adored 
active  nature,  or  the  great  whole  con- 
sidered relatively  to  its  different  opera- 
tions or  qualities ;  that  this  was  what 
caused  the  ignorant  savages  whom 
they  had  gathered  together  to  adore.J 
It  was  the  great  whole  they  deified ;  it 
was  its  various  parts  which  they  made 
their  inferior  gods ;  it  was  from  the 
necessity  of  her  laws  they  made  fate. 
Allegory  masked  its  mode  of  action :  it 
was  at  length  parts  of  this  great  whole 
that  idolatry  represented  by  statues 
and  symbols. § 

To  complete  the  proofs  of  what  has 
been  said ;  to  show  distinctly  that  it 
was  the  great  whole,  the  universe,  the 
nature  of  things,  which  was  the  real 
object  of  the  worship  of  Pagan  anti- 
quity, we  shall  here  give  the  hymn  of 
Orpheus  addressed  to  the  God  Pan : — 

"  O  Pan !  I  invoke  thee,  O  powerful 
God !  O  universal  nature  !  the  heavens, 
the  sea,  the  earth,  who  nourish  all,  and 
the  eternal  fire,  because  these  are  thv 
members,  O  all  powerful  Pan,"  &c. 
Nothing  can  be  more  suitable  to  con- 
firm these  ideas,  than  the  ingenious  ex- 
planation which  is  given  of  the  fable  of 
Pan,  as  well  as  of  the  figure  under 
which  he  is  represented.  It  is  said. 


t  The  Greeks  called  nature  a  divinity  who 
had  a  thousand  names  (MT^'OVO^*).  All  the 
divinities  of  Paganism,  were  nothing  more 
than  nature  considered  according  to  its  differ- 
ent functions,  and  under  its  different  points 
of  view.  The  emblems  with  which  they  de- 
corated these  divinities  again  prove  this  truth. 
These  different  modes  of  considering  nature 
have  given  birth  to  Polytheism  and  Idolatry. 
See  the  critical  remarks  against  Toland  by 
M.  Benoist,  page  258. 

§  To  convince  ourselves  of  this  truth,  we 
have  only  to  open  the  ancient  authors.  "I 
believe,"  says  Varro,  "  that  God  is  the  soul 
of  the  universe,  which  the  Greeks  have  called 
KO2MO2,  and  that  the  universe  itself  is 
God."  Cicero  says,  "cosqui  dii  appellantur 
rerum  natura  esse."  See  de  Natura  Deorum, 
lib.  iii.  cap.  24.  The  same  Cicero  says,  that 
in  the  mysteries  of  Samothracia,  of  Lemnos, 
of  Eleusis,  it  was  nature  much  more  than  the 
Gods  they  explained  to  the  initiated.  Rerum 
magis  natura  cognoscitur  quam  deorum.  Join 
to  these  anthorities  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  chap, 
xiii.  ver.  10,  and  xiv.  15  and  22.  Pliny  says, 
in  a  very  dogmatical  style,  "  We  must  believe 
that  the  world,  or  that  which  is  contained 
under  the  vast  extent  of  the  heavens,  is  the 
DIVINITY  itself,  eternal,  immense,  without  be- 
ginning or  end."  Sec  Plin.  Hist.  Nat.  lib. 
ii.  cap.  1,  init. 


OP  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


179 


<(  Pan,  according  to  the  signification  of 
his  name,  is  the  emblem  by  which  the 
ancients  have  designated  the  great  as- 
semblage of  things :  he  represents  the 
universe ;  and,  in  the  mind  of  the 
wisest  philosophers  of  antiquity,  he 
passed  for  the  greatest  and  most  ancient 
of  the  Gods.  The  features  under  which 
he  is  delineated  form  the  portrait  of  na- 
ture, and  of  the  savage  state  in  which 
she  was  found  in  the  beginning.  The 
spotted  skin  of  the  leopard,  which  serves 
him  for  a  mantle,  represented  the  hea- 
vens filled  with  stars  and  constellations. 
His  person  was  compounded  of  parts, 
some  of  which  were  suitable  to  a  rea- 
sonable animal,  that  is  to  say,  to  man  ; 
and  others  to  the  animal  destitute  of 
reason,  such  as  the  goat.  It  is  thus," 
says  he,  "that  the  universe  is  com- 
posed of  an  intelligence  that  governs 
the  whole,  and  of  the  prolific,  fruitful  el- 
ements of  fire,  water,  earth,  air.  Pan, 
loved  to  drink  and  to  follow  the  nymphs ; 
this  announces  the  occasion  nature  has 
for  humidity  in  all  her  productions,  and 
that  this  God,  like  nature,  is  strongly  in- 
clined to  propagation.  According  to 
the  Egyptians,  and  the  most  ancient 
Grecian  philosophers,  Pan  had  neither 
father  nor  mother ;  he  came  out  of  De- 
mogorgon  at  the  same  moment  with  the 
Destinies,  his  fatal  sisters  ;  a  fine 
method  of  expressing  that  the  universe 
was  the  work  of  an  unknown  power, 
and  that  it  was  formed  after  the  inva- 
riable relations,  the  eternal  laws  of  ne- 
cessity ;  but  his  most  significant  sym- 
bol, that  most  suitable  to  express  the 
harmony  of  the  universe,  is  his  myste- 
rious pipe,  composed  of  seven  unequal 
tubes,  but  calculated  to  produce  the 
nicest  and  most  perfect  concord.  The 
orbs  which  compose  the  seven  planets 
of  our  solar  system,  are  of  different  di- 
ameters ;  being  bodies  of  unequal  mass, 
they  describe  their  revolutions  round 
the  sun  in  various  periods  ;  neverthe- 
less it  is  from  the  order  of  their  mo- 
tion that  results  the  harmony  of  the 
spheres."  &c.* 


*  Thispassage  is  taken  from  an  English  book 
entitled,  Letters  concerning  Mythology.  We 
«an  hardly  doubt  that  the  wisest  among  the 
Pagans  adored  nature,  which  mythology,  or 
the  Pagan  theologv,  designated  under  an  in- 
finity of  names  and  different  emblems.  Apu- 
teius,  although  he  was  a  Platonist  and  accus- 
tomed to  the  mysterious  and  unintelligible  no- 


Here  then  is  the  great  macrocosm, 
the  mighty  whole,  the  assemblage  of 
things,  adored  and  deified  by  the  phi- 
losophers of  antiquity,  whilst  the  un- 
informed stopped  at  the  emblem  under 
which  this  nature  was  depicted,  at  the 
symbols  under  which  its  various  parts, 
its  numerous  functions  were  personifi- 
ed ;  his  narrow  mind,  his  barbarous  ig- 
norance, never  permitted  him  to  mount 
higher ;  they  alone  were  deemed  wor- 
thy of  being  initiated  into  the  myste- 
ries, who  Jmew  the  realities  masked 
under  these  emblems. 

Indeed,  the  first  institutors  of  nations, 
and  their  immediate  successors  in  au- 
thority, only  spoke  to  the  people  by  fa- 
bles, allegories,  enigmas,  of  which  they 
reserved  to  themselves  the  right  of  giv- 
ing an  explanation.  This  mysterious 
tone  they  considered  necessary,  wheth- 
er it  were  to  mask  their  own  ignorance, 
or  whether  it  were  to  preserve  their  pow- 
er over  the  uninformed,  who  for  the 
most  part  only  respect  that  which  is 
above  their  comprehension.  Their  ex- 
plications were  always  dictated  either 
by  interest,  by  a  delirious  imagination, 
or  by  imposture  ;  thus  from  age  to  age, 
they  did  no  more  than  render  nature 
and  its  parts,  which  they  had  original- 
ly depicted,  more  unknown,  until  they 
completely  lost  sight  of  the  primitive 
ideas  ;  these  were  replaced  by  a  mul- 
titude of  fictitious  personages,  under 
whose  features  this  nature  had  prima- 
rily been  represented  to  them.  The 
people  adored  these  personages,  with- 
out penetrating  into  the  true  sense  of 
the  emblematical  fables  recounted  to 
them.  These  ideal  beings,  with  mate- 
rial figures,  in  whom  they  believed 
there  resided  a  mysterious  virtue,  a  di- 
vine power,  were  the  objects  of  their 
worship,  of  their  fears,  of  their  hopes. 
The  wonderful,  the  incredible  actions 

tions  of  his  master,  calls  nature  "  rerum  natu- 
ra  parens,  elementorum  omnium  Domina, 

saeculorum  progenies  initialis Ma- 

trem  siderum,  parentem  temporum,  orbisque 
totius  dominam."  It  is  this  nature  that  some 
adored  under  the  name  of  the  mother  of  the 
Gods,  others  under  the  names  of  Ceres,  Ve- 
nus, Minerva.  &c.  In  short,  the  Pantheism 
of  the  Pagans  is  clearly  proved  by  these  re- 
markable words  in  the  maxims  of  Medaura, 
who  in  speaking  of  nature  says,  "ita  fit  ut ; 
clum  ejus  quasi  membra  carptim,  variis  sup- 
plicationibus  prosequimur,  totum  colere  pro- 
fecto  videamur." 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


ascribed  to  these  fancied  divinities, 
were  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  admira- 
tion, which  gave  perpetual  play  to  the 
fancy ',  which  delighted  not  only  the 
people  of  those  days,  but  even  the  chil- 
dren of  latter  ages.  Thus  were  trans- 
mitted from  age  to  age  those  marvellou 
accounts,  which,  although  necessary  to 
the  existence  of  the  ministers  of  the 
Gods,  did  nothing  more  than  confirm 
the  blindness  of  the  ignorant :  these 
never  supposed  that  it  was  nature,  its 
various  operations,  the  passions  of  man 
and  his  divers  faculties,  that  lay  buried 
Under  a  heap  of  allegories  ;*  they  had 
no  eyes  but  for  these  emblematical 
persons,  under  which  nature  was  mask- 
ed :  they  attributed  to  their  influence 
the  good,  to  their  displeasure  the  evil, 
which  they  experienced :  they  entered 
into  every  kind  of  folly,  into  the  most 
delirious  acts  of  madness,  to  render 
them  propitious  to  their  views ;  thus, 
for  want  of  being  acquainted  with  the 
reality  of  things,their  worship  frequently 
degenerated  into  the  most  cruel  extrav- 
agance, into  the  most  ridiculous  folly. 
Thus  it  is  obvious,  that  every  thing 
proves  nature  and  its  various  parts 
to  have  every  where  been  the  first 
divinities  of  man.  Natural  philoso- 
phers studied  them  either  superficially 
or  profoundly,  explained  some  of  their 
properties  ;  detailed  some  of  their 
modes  of  action.  Poets  painted  them 
to  the  imagination  of  mortals,  imbodied 
them,  and  furnished  them  with  reason- 
ing faculties.  The  statuary  executed 
the  ideas  of  the  poets.  The  priests  de- 
corated these  Gods  with  a  thousand 
marvellous  qualities — with  the  most 
terrible  passions — with  the  most  incon- 
ceivable attributes.  The  people  adored 
them  ;  prostrated  themselves  before 
these  Gods,  who  were  neither  suscep- 
tible of  love  or  hatred,  goodness,  or  mal- 


*  The  passions  and  faculties  of  human  na- 
ture were  used  as  emblems,  because  man  was 
ignorant  of  the  true  cause  of  the  phenomena 
he  beheld.  As  strong  passions  seemed  to  hur- 
ry man  along,  in  despite  of  himself,  they 
either  attributed  these  passions  to  a  God,  or 
deified  them;  it  was  thus  love  became  ad  eity ; 
that  eloquence,  poetry,  industry,  were  trans- 
formed into  Gods  under  the  names  of  Her- 
mes, Mercury,  Apollo;  the  stings  of  con- 
science were  called  Furies.  Christians  have 
also  deified  reason  under  the  name  of  the  eter- 
nal word. 


ice  ;  and  they  became  persecuting, 
.malevolent,  cruel,  unjust,  in  order  to 
render  themselves  acceptable  to  pow- 
ers generally  described  to  them  under 
the  most  odious  features. 

By  dint  of  reasoning  upon  nature  thus 
decorated,  or  rather  disfigured,  subse- 
quent speculators  no  longer  recollect- 
ed the  source  from  whence  their  pre- 
decessors had  drawn  their  Gods,  and 
the  fantastic  ornaments  with  which 
they  had  embellished  them.  Natural 
philosophers  and  poets  were  transform- 
ed by  leisure  into  metaphysicians  and 
theologians  ;  tired  with  contemplating 
what  they  could  have  understood,  they 
believed  they  had  made  an  important 
discovery  by  subtilly  distinguishing  na- 
ture from  herself — from  her  own  pecu- 
liar energies— from  her  faculty  of  ac- 
tion. By  degrees  they  made  an  in- 
comprehensible being  of  this  energy, 
which  as  before  they  personified  :  this 
they  called  the  mover  of  nature,  or 
God.  This  abstract,  metaphysical  be- 
ing, or  rather,  word,  became  the  sub- 
ject of  their  continual  contemplation  ;* 
they  looked  upon  it  not  only  as  a  real 
being,  but  also  as  the  most  important 
of  beings ;  and  by  thus  dreaming,  na- 
ture quite  disappeared ;  she  was  de- 
spoiled of  her  rights  ;  she  was  consid- 
ered as  nothing  more  than  an  unwieldy 
mass,  destitute  of  power,  devoid  of  en- 
ergy, and  as  a  heap  of  ignoble  matter 
purely  passive,  who,  incapable  of  act- 
ing by  herself,  was  not  competent  to 
any  of  the  operations  they  beheld, 
without  the  direct,  the  immediate  agen- 
cy of  the  moving  power  they  had  as- 
sociated with  her.  Thus  man  ever 
preferred  an  unknown  power,  to  that  of 
which  he  was  enabled  to  have  some 
knowledge  if  he  had  only  deigned  to 
consult  his  experience ;  but  he  present- 
ly ceases  to  respect  that  which  he  un- 
derstands, and  to  estimate  those  ob- 
jects Avhich  are  familiar  to  him :  he 
figures  to  himself  something  marvellous 
in  every  thing  he  does  not  comprehend ; 
his  mind,  above  all,  labours  to  seize  up- 
on that  which  appears  to  escape  his 
consideration ;  and,  in  default  of  expe- 
rience, he  no  longer  consults  any  thing 


*  The  Greek  word  OEO2  comes  from 
ripi,  pono  or  rather  from   0EAOMAI, 

specto,  contemplor,  to  take  a  view  of  hidden 

and  secret  things. 


OP  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


181 


but  his  imagination,  which  feeds  him 
with  chimeras.  In  consequence,  those 
Speculators  who  have  subtilly  distin- 
guished nature  from  her  own  powers, 
have  successively  laboured  to  clothe 
the  powers  thus  separated  with  a  thou- 
sand incomprehensible  qualities :  as 
they  did  not  see  this  being,  which  is  on- 
ly a  mode,  they  made  it  a  spirit — an 
intelligence — an  incorporeal  being ;  that 
is  to  say,  of  a  substance  totally  diffe- 
rent from  every  thing  of  which  we  have 
a  knowledge.  They  never  perceived 
that  all  their  inventions,  that  all  the 
words  which  they  imagined,  only  serv- 
ed to  mask  their  real  ignorance ;  and 
that  all  their  pretended  science  was 
limited  to  saying,  in  what  manner  na- 
ture acted,  by  a  thousand  subterfuges 
which  they  themselves  found  it  impos- 
sible to  comprehend.  Man  always  de- 
ceives himself  for  want  of  studying  na- 
ture ;  he  leads  himself  astray,  every 
time  he  is  disposed  to  go  out  of  it ;  he 
is  always  quickly  necessitated  to  return 
or  to  substitute  words  which  he  does 
not  himself  understand  for  things  which 
he  would  much  better  comprehend  if 
he  was  willing  to  look  at  them  without 
prejudice. 

Can  a  theologian  ingenuously  be- 
lieve himself  more  enlightened,  for  ha- 
ving substituted  the  vague  words,  spi- 
rit, incorporeal  substance,  Divinity, 
&c.  to  the  more  intelligible  terms  na- 
ture, matter,  mobility,  necessity  ?  How- 
ever this  may  be,  these  obscure  words 
once  imagined,  it  was  necessary  to  at- 
tach ideas  to  them  ;  in  doing  this,  he 
has  not  been  able  to  draw  them  from  any 
other  source  than  the  beings  of  this  de- 
spised nature,  which  are  ever  the  only 
"beings  of  which  he  is  enabled  to  have  any 
knowledge.  Man,  consequently,  drew 
them  up  in  himself;  his  own  mind  serv- 
ed for  the  model  of  the  universal  mind  of 
which  indeed  according  to  some  it  only 
formed  a  portion ;  his  own  mind  was 
the  standard  of  the  mind  that  regulated 
nature ;  his  own  passions,  his  own  de- 
sires, were  the  prototypes  of  those  by 
which  he  actuated  this  being ;  his  own 
intelligence  was  that  from  which  he 
formed  that  of  the  supposed  mover  of 
nature ;  that  which  was  suitable  to  him- 
self, he  called  the  order  of  nature ;  this 
pretended  order  was  the  scale  by  which 
he  measured  the  wisdom  of  this  being ; 
in  short,  those  qualities  which  he  calls 


perfections  in  himself,  were  the  arche- 
types, in  miniature,  of  the  Divine  per- 
fections. It  was  thus,  that  in  despite 
of  all  their  efforts,  the  theologians 
were,  and  always  will  be  true  Anthro- 
pomorphites.  Indeed,  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible  to  prevent  man 
from  making  himself  the  sole  model  of 
his  divinity.*  Indeed,  man  sees  in  his 
God  nothing  but  a  man.  Let  him 
subtilize  as  he  will,  let  him  extend  his 
own  powers  as  he  may,  let  him  swell  his 
own  perfections  to  the  utmost,  he  will 
have  done  nothing  more  than  make  a 
gigantic,  exaggerated  man,  whom  he 
will  render  illusory  by  dint  of  heaping 
together  incompatible  qualities.  He 
will  never  see  in  God,  but  a  being  of 
the  human  species,  in  whom  he  will 
strive  to  aggrandize  the  proportions,  un- 
til he  has  formed  a  being  totally  incon- 
ceivable. It  is  according  to  these  dis- 
positions that  he  attributes  intelligence, 
wisdom,  goodness,  justice,  science, 
power,  to  the  Divinity,  because  he  is 
himself  intelligent;  because  he  has  the 
idea  of  wisdom  in  some  beings  of  his 
own  species ;  because  he  loves  to  find 
in  them  ideas  favourable  to  himself: 
because  he  esteems  those  who  display 
equity  ;  because  he  has  a  knowledge, 
which  he  holds  more  extensive  in  some 
individuals  than  himself;  in  short,  be- 
cause he  enjoys  certain  faculties  which 
depend  on  his  own  organization.  He 
presently  extends  or  exaggerates  all 
these  qualities ;  the  sight  of  the  phe- 
nomena, of  nature,  which  he  feels  he 
is  himself  incapable  of  either  produ- 
cing or  imitating,  obliges  him  to  make 
this  difference  between  his  God  and 
himself;  but  he  knows  not  at  whai 
point  to  stop  ;  he  fears  lest  he  should 
deceive  himself  if  he  should  see  any 


*  Montaign  says,  "Man  is  not  able  to  be 
other  than  h^is,  nor  imagine  but  after  his  ca- 
pacity;  let  him  take  what  pains  he  mav,  he 
will  never  have  a  knowledge  of  any  soul  but 
his  own."  Xenophanes  said,  "  If  the  ox  or  the 
elephant  understood  either  sculpture  or  paint- 
ing, they  would  not  fail  to  represent  the  Divin- 
ity under  their  own  peculiar  figure ;  that  in 
this,  they  would  have  as  much  reason  as 
Polyclitus  or  Phidias,  who  gave  him  the  hu- 
man form."  It  was  said  to  a  very  celebrated 
man  that  "God  made  man  after  his  own  im- 
age ;"  "  Man  has  returned  the  compliment," 
replied  the  philosopher ;  and  L'amotte  le  Vay- 
er  used  to  remark,  that  "theanth ropy  was  the 
foundation  of  every  system  of  Christianity. ," 


182 


OP    MYTHOLOGY    AND  THEOLOGY. 


limits  to  the  qualities  he  assigns ;  the 
word  infinite,  therefore,  is  the  ab- 
stract, the  vague  term  which  he  uses 
to  characterize  them.  He  says  that 
his  power  is  infinite,  which  signifies 
that  when  he  beholds  those  stupen- 
dous effects  which  nature  produces,  he 
has  no  conception  at  what  point  his 
power  can  rest ;  that  his  goodness,  his 
wisdom,  his  knowledge  are  infinite : 
this  announces  that  he  is  ignorant  how 
far  these  perfections  may  be  carried  in 
a  being  whose  power  so  much  surpass- 
es his  own.  He  says  that  his  God  is 
eternal,  that  is,  of  infinite  duration,  be- 
cause he  is  not  capable  of  conceiving 
he  could  have  had  a  beginning  or  can 
ever  cease  to  be,  and  this  he  considers 
a  defect  in  those  transitory  beings  of 
whom  he  beholds  the  dissolution,  whom 
he  sees  are  subjected  to  death.  He 
presumes  the  cause  of  those  effects  to 
which  he  is  a  witness,  is  immutable, 
permanent,  not  subjected  to  change 
like  all  the  evanescent  beings  whom  he 
knows  are  submitted  to  dissolution,  to 
destruction,  to  change  of  form.  This 
pretended  mover  of  nature  being  always 
invisible  to  man,  his  mode  of  action  be- 
ing impenetrable,  he  believes  that,  like 
the  concealed  principle  which  animates 
his  own  body,  this  God  is  the  moving 
power  of  the  universe.  Thus  when  by 
dint  of  subtilizing,  he  has  arrived  at 
believing  the  principle  by  which  his 
body  is  moved  is  a  spiritual,  immaterial 
substance,  he  makes  his  God  spiritual 
or  immaterial  in  like  manner:  he  makes 
it  immense,  although  without  extent; 
immoveable,  although  capable  of  mov- 
ing nature:  immutable,  although  he 
supposes  him  to  be  the  author  of  all  the 
changes  operated  in  the  universe. 

The  idea  of  the  unity  of  God,  was  a 
consequence  of  the  opinion  that  this 
God  was  soul  of  the  universe ;  how- 
ever it  was  only  the  tardy  fruit  of  hu- 
man meditation.*  The  sight  of  those 
opposite,  frequently  contradictory  ef- 
fects, which  man  saw  take  place  in  the 


*  The  idea  of  the  unity  of  God  cost  Socra- 
Tes  his  life.  The  Athenians  treated  as  an 
atheist  a  man  who  believed  only  in  one  God. 
Plato  did  not  dare  to  break  entirely  with  the 
doctrine  of  Polytheism ;  he  preserved  Venus, 
an  all-powerful  Jupiter,  and  a  Pallas,  who  was 
the  Goddess  of  the  country.  The  Christians 
were  looked  upon  as  Atheists  by  Pagans,  be- 
cause they  adored  only  one  God. 


world,  had  a  tendency  to  persuade  him 
there  must  be  a  number  of  distinct,  pow- 
ers or  causes  independent  of  each 
other.  He  was  unable  to  conceive  that 
the  various  phenomena  he  beheld, 
sprung  from  a  single,  from  a  unique 
cause ;  he  therefore  admitted  many 
causes  or  Gods,  acting  upon  different 
principles ;  some  of  which  he  consid- 
ered friendly,  others  as  inimical  to  his 
race.  Such  is  the  origin  of  that  doc- 
trine, so  ancient,  so  universal,  which 
supposed  two  principles  in  nature,  or 
two  powers  of  opposite  interest,  who 
were  perpetually  at  war  with  each 
other ;  by  the  assistance  of  this  he  ex- 
plained that  constant  mixture  of  good 
and  evil,  that  blending  of  prosperity 
with  misfortune,  in  a  word,  those  eter- 
nal vicissitudes  to  which  in  this  world 
the  human  being  is  subjected.  This  is 
the  source  of  those  combats  which  all 
antiquity  has  supposed  to  exist  between 
good  and  wicked  Gods,  between  an 
Osiris  and  a  Typbosus  ;  between  an 
Orosmadis  and  an  Arimanis ;  between 
a  Jupiter  and  the  Titanes  ;  between  a 
Jehovah  and  a  Satan.  In  these  ren- 
counters man  for  his  own  peculiar  in- 
terest always  gave  the  palm  of  victory 
to  the  beneficent  Deity ;  this,  accor- 
ding to  all  the  traditions  handed  down, 
ever  remained  in  possession  of  the  field 
of  battle ;  it  was  evidently  for  the  ben- 
efit of  mankind  that  the  good  God 
should  prevail  over  the  wicked. 

Even  when  man  acknowledged  only 
one  God,  he  always  supposed  the  dif- 
ferent departments  of  nature  were  con- 
fided to  powers  subordinate  to  his  su- 
preme orders,  under  whom  the  sove- 
reign of  the  Gods  discharged  his  care 
in  the  administration  of  the  world. — 
These  subaltern  Gods  were  prodigious- 
ly multiplied  ;  each  man,  each  town, 
each  country,  had  their  local,  their  tute- 
lary Gods ;  every  event,  whether  fortu- 
nate or  unfortunate,  had  a  divine  cause, 
and  was  the  consequence  of  a  sove- 
reign decree  ;  each  natural  effect,  every 
operation  of  nature,  each  passion,  de- 
pended upon  a  Divinity,  which  theolo- 
gical imagination,  disposed  to  see  Gods 
every  where,  and  always  mistaking 
nature,  either  embellished  or  disfigured. 
Poetry  tuned  its  harmonious  lays  on 
these  occasions,  exaggerated  the  de- 
tails, animated  its  pictures ;  credulous 
ignorance  received  the  portraits  with 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


163 


eagerness,  and  heard  the  doctrines  with 
submission. 

Such  is  the  origin  of  Polytheism: 
such  are  the  foundations,  such  the  titles 
of  the  hierarchy,  which  man  establish- 
ed between  himself  and  the  Gods,  be- 
cause he  felt  he  was  incapable  of  im- 
mediately addressing  himself  to  the 
incomprehensible  being  whom  he  had 
acknowledged  for  the  only  sovereign 
of  nature,  without  even  having  any 
distinct  idea  on  the  subject.  Such  is 
the  true  genealogy  of  those  inferior 
Gods  whom  the  uninformed  place  as  a 
proportional  means  between  them- 
selves and  the  first  of  all  other  causes. 
In  consequence,  among  the  Greeks  and 
the  Romans,  we  see  the  deities  divided 
into  two  classes  :  the  one  were  called 
great  Gods,*  who  formed  a  kind  of 
aristocratic  order  distinguished  from 
the  minor  Gods,  or  from  the  multitude 
of  ethnic  divinities.  Nevertheless,  the 
first  rank  of  these  Pagan  divinities,  like 
the  latter,  were  submitted  to  Fate,  that 
is,  to  destiny,  which  obviously  is  no- 
thing more  than  nature  acting  by  im- 
mutable, rigorous,  and  necessary  laws ; 
this  destiny  was  looked  upon  as  the 
God  of  Gods;  it  is  evident  that  this 
was  nothing  more  than  necessity  per- 
sonified, and  that  therefore  it  was  a 
weakness  in  the  heathens  to  fatigue 
with  their  sacrifices,  to  solicit  with 
their  prayers,  those  Divinities  whom 
they  themselves  believed  were  submit- 
ted to  the  decrees  of  an  inexorable  des- 
tiny, of  which  it  was  never  possible 
for  them  to  alter  the  mandates.  But 
man  ceases  always  to  reason  whenever 
his  theological  notions  are  brought  into 
question. 

What  has  been  already  said,  serves 
to  show  the  common  source  of  that 
multitude  of  intermediate  powers,  sub- 
ordinate to  the  Gods,  but  superior  to 
man,  with  which  he  filled  the  universe  :f 

*  The  Greeks  called  the  great  Gods  QKI 
Ki@ipoi — Cabiri;  the  Romans  called  them 
Dli  majorum  gentium  or  Dii  consentes,  be- 
cause the  whole  world  were  in  accord  in  dei- 
fying the  most  striking  and  active  parts  of 
nature,  such  as  the  sun,  fire,  the  sea,  time, 
&c.,  whilst  the  other  Gods  were  entirely  local, 
that  is  to  say,  were  reverenced  only  in  par- 
ticular countries,  or  by  individuals,  as  in 
Rome,  where  every  citizen  had  Gods  for  him- 
self alone,  whom  he  adored  under  the  names 
of  Penates,  Lares,  &c. 

t  Among  the  Romans  they  were  called  Dii 


they  were  venerated  under  the  names 
of  nymphs,  demi-gods,  angels,  demons, 
good  and  evil  genii,  spirits,  heroes, 
saints,  &c.  These  constitute  different 
classes  of  intermediate  divinities,  who 
became  either  the  foundation  of  their 
hopes,  the  object  of  their  fears,  the 
means  of  consolation,  or  the  source  of 
dread  to  those  very  mortals  who  only 
invented  them  when  they  found  it  im- 
possible to  form  to  themselves  distinct, 
perspicuous  ideas  of  the  incomprehen- 
sible Being  who  governed  the  world  in 
chief,  or  when  they  despaired  of  being 
able  to  hold  communication  with  him 
directly. 

By  dint  of  meditation  and  reflection 
some,  who  gave  the  subject  more  con- 
sideration than  others,  reduced  the 
whole  to  one  all-powerful  Divinity, 
whose  power  and  wisdom  sufficed  to 
govern  it.  This  God  was  looked  upon 
as  a  monarch  jealous  of  nature.  They 
persuaded  themselves  that  to  give  ri- 
vals and  associates  to  the  monarch  to 
whom  all  homage  was  due  would  of- 
fend him — that  he  could  not  bear  a 
division  of  empire — that  infinite  power 
and  unlimited  wisdom  had  no  occasion 
for  a  division  of  power  nor  for  any  as- 
sistance. Thus  some  would-be-thought- 
profound-thinkers  have  admitted  one 
God,  and  in  doinf  so  have  flattered 
themselves  with  having  achieved  a 
most  important  discovery.  And  yet, 
they  must  at  once  have  been  most  sadly 
perplexed  by  the  contradictory  actions 
of  this  one  God ;  so  much  so  that  they 
were  obliged  to  heap  on  him  the  most 
incompatible  and  extravagant  qualities 
to  account  for  those  contradictory  ef- 
fects which  so  palpably  and  clearly 
gave  the  lie  to  some  of  the  attributes 
they  assigned  to  him.  In  supposing  a 
God,  the  author  of  every  thing,  man  is 
obliged  to  attribute  to  him  unlimited 
goodness,wisdom,  and  power,  agreeable 
to  the  kindness,  to  the  order  he  fancied 
he  saw  in  the  universe,  and  according  to 
the  wonderful  effects  he  witnessed; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  how  could  he 
avoid  attributing  to  this  God  malice, 
improvidence,  and  caprice,  seeing  the 
frequent  disorders  and  numberless  evils 

vudtoximi — intermediate  Gods;  they  were 
looked  upon  ae  mediators,  or  intercessors ;  as 
powers  whom  it  was  necessary  to  reverence 
in  order  either  to  obtain  their  favour,  appease 
their  anger,  or  divert  their  malignant  inten- 
tions. 


184 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AN  D  THEOLOGY. 


to  which  the  human  race  is  so  often 
liable  ?  How  can  man  avoid  taxing 
him  with  improvidence,  seeing  that  he 
is  continually  employed  in  destroying 
the  work  of  his  own  hands  ?  How  is 
it  possible  not  to  suspect  his  impotence, 
seeing  the  perpetual  non-performance 
of  those  projects  of  which  he  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  contriver'? 

To  solve  these  difficulties,  man  cre- 
ated enemies  to  the  Divinity,  who  al- 
though subordinate  to  the  supreme 
God,  were  nevertheless  competent  to 
disturb  his  empire,  to  frustrate  his 
views  ;  he  had  been  made  a  king,  and 
adversaries,  however  impotent,  were 
found  willing  to  dispute  his  diadem. 
Such  is  the  origin  of  the  fable  of  the 
Titanes,  or  of  the  rebellious  angels, 
whose  presumption  caused  them  to  be 
plunged  into  the  abyss  of  misery — who 
were  changed  into  demons,  or  into  evil 
genii:  these  had  no  other  functions, 
than  to  render  abortive  the  projects  of 
the  Almighty,  and  to  -seduce,  to  raise 
to  rebellion,  those  who  were  his  sub- 
jects.* 

In  consequence  of  this  ridiculous 
fable  the  monarch  of  nature  was  rep- 
resented as  perpetually  in  a  scuffle 
with  the  enemies  he  had  himself 
created;  notwithstanding  his  infinite 
power,  either  he  Would  not  or  could 
not  totally  subdue  them ;  he  was  in  a 
continual  state  of  hostility,  rewarding 
those  who  obeyed  his  laws,  and  pun- 
ishing those  who  had  the  misfortune 
to  enter  into  the  conspiracies  of  the 
enemies  of  his  glory.  As  a  conse- 
quence of  these  ideas,  borrowed  from 
the  conduct  of  earthly  monarchs  who 
are  almost  always  in  a  state  of  war, 
some  men  claimed  to  be  the  ministers 
of  God :  they  made  him  speak ;  they 


*  The  fable  of  the  Titanes,  or  rebellious 
angels,  is  extremely  ancient  and  very  gene- 
rally diffused  over  the  world ;  it  serves  for  the 
foundation  of  the  theology  of  the  Brah- 
mins of  Hindostan,  as  well  as  for  that  of  the 
European  priesthood.  According  to  the  Brah- 
mins, all  living  bodies  are  animated  by  fallen 
angels,  who,  under  these  forms,  expiate  their 
rebellion.  This  fable,  as  well  as  that  of 
demons,  makes  the  Divinity  play  a  very  ridicu- 
lous part;  in  fact  it  supposes  that  God  gives 
existence  to  adversaries  to  keep  himself  em- 
ployed, or  in  training,  and  to  show  his  power. 
Yet  there  is  no  display  whatever  of  this  pow- 
er, since,  according  to  theological  notions,  the 
Devil  has  many  more  adherents  than  the 
Divinity. 


unveiled  his  concealed  intentions,  and 
denounced  the  violation  of  his  laws  as 
the  most  horrible  crime :  the  ignorant 
multitude  received  these  without  ex- 
amination ;  they  did  not  perceive  that 
it  was  man  and  not  a  God  who  thus 
spoke  to  them ;  they  did  not  reflect  that 
it  was  impossible  for  weak  creatures 
to  act  contrary  to  the  will  of  a  God 
whom  they  supposed  to  be  the  creator 
of  all  beings,  and  therefore  who  could 
have  no  enemies  in  nature  but  those 
he  himself  had  created.  It  was  pre- 
tended that  man,  spite  of  his  natural 
dependance  and  the  infinite  power  of 
his  God,  was  able  to  oflend  him,  was 
capable  of  thwarting  him,  of  declaring 
war  against  him,  of  overthrowing  his 
designs,  and  of  disturbing  the  order  he 
had  established.  This  God,  no  "doubt, 
to  make  a  parade  of  his  power,  was 
supposed  to  have  created  enemies 
against  himself,  so  that  he  might  have 
the  pleasure  of  fighting  them,  although 
he  is  not  willing  either  to  destroy  them 
or  to  change  their  bad  dispositions. 
In  fine,  it  was  believed  that  he  had 
granted  to  his  rebellious  enemies,  as 
well  as  to  all  mankind,  the  liberty  of 
violating  his  commands,  of  annihila- 
ting his  projects,  of  kindling  his  wrath, 
and  of  arresting  his  goodness.  Hence, 
all  the  benefits  of  this  life  were  con- 
sidered as  rewards,  and  its  evils  as 
merited  punishments.  In  fact,  the  sys- 
tem of  man's  free  will  seems  to  have 
been  invented  only  to  enable  him  to 
sin  against  God,  and  to  acquit  this  last 
of  the  evil  he  brings  upon  man  for 
exercising  the  fatal  liberty  given  him. 

These  ridiculous  and  contradictory 
notions  served  nevertheless  for  the  ba- 
sis of  all  the  superstitions  of  the  world, 
believing  that  they  thereby  accounted 
for  the  origin  of  evil  and  the  cause  of 
man's  misery.  And  yet  man  could  not 
but  see  that  he  frequently  suffered  on 
earth  without  having  committed  any 
crime,  without  any  known  transgres- 
sion to  provoke  the  anger  of  his  God ; 
he  perceived  that  even  those  who  com- 
plied in  the  most  faithful  manner  with 
his  pretended  orders  were  .often  involv- 
ed in  the  same  ruin  with  the  boldest 
violator  of  his  laws.  In  the  habit  of 
bending  to  power,  to  tremble  before  his 
terrestrial  sovereign,  to  whom  he  al- 
lowed the  privilege  of  being  iniquitous, 
never  disputing  his  titles,  nor  ever  criti- 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


185 


cising  tne  conduct  of  those  who  had 
the  power  in  their  hands,  man  dar- 
ed still  less  to  examine  into  the  con- 
duct of  his  God,  or  to  accuse  him  of 
motiveless  cruelty.  Besides,  the  min- 
isters, the  celestial  monarch  invented 
means  of  justifying  him,  and  of  ma- 
king the  cause  of  those  evils,  or  of 
those  punishments  which  men  experi- 
ence fall  upon  themselves;  in  conse- 
quence of  the  liberty  which  they  pre- 
tended was  given  to  creatures,  they 
supposed  that  man  had  sin,  that  his 
nature  was  perverted,  that  the  whole 
human  race  carried  with  it  the  pun- 
ishment incurred  by  the  faults  of  his 
ancestors,  which  their  implacable  mon- 
arch still  avenged  upon  their  innocent 
posterity.  Men  found  this  vengeance 
perfectly  legitimate,  because  according 
to  the  most  disgraceful  prejudices  they 
proportioned  the  punishments  much 
more  to  the  power  and  dignity  of  the 
offended,  than  to  the  magnitude  or  real- 
ity of  the  offence.  In  consequence  of 
this  principle  they  thought  that  a  God 
had  an  indubitable  right  to  avenge, 
without  proportion  and  without  end, 
the  outrages  committed  against  his  di- 
vine majesty.  In  a  word,  the  theolo- 
gical mind  tortured  itself  to  find  men 
culpable,  and  to  exculpate  the  Divinity 
from  the  evils  which  nature  made  the 
former  necessarily  experience.  Man 
invented  a  thousand  fables  to  give  a 
reason  for  the  mode  in  which  evil  en- 
tered into  this  world  ;  and  the  ven- 
geance of  heaven  always  appeared  to 
have  sufficient  motives,  because  he  be- 
lieved that  crimes  committed  against  a 
being  infinitely  great  and  powerful 
ought  to  be  infinitely  punished. 

Moreover,  man  saw  that  the  earthly 
powers,  even  when  they  committed  the 
most  barefaced  injustice,  never  suffer- 
ed him  to  tax  them  with  being  unjust, 
to  entertain  a  doubt  of  their  wisdom, 
to  murmur  at  their  conduct.     He  was 
not  going  then  to  accuse  of  injustice 
the  despot  of  the  universe,  to  doubt  his 
rights,  or  to  complain  of  his  rigour :  he 
believed  that  God  could  commit  every 
thing  against  the  feeble  work   of  his  j 
hands,  that  he  owed   nothing  to  his  ! 
creatures,  that  he  had  a  right  to  exer- ! 
cise  over  them  an  absolute  and  unlim- 1 
ited   dominion.      It  is  thus   that   the  j 
tyrants  of  the  earth  act ;  and  their  ar- 1 
bitrary  conduct  serves  for  the  model  of  j 

No.  VI.— 24 


that  which  they  accord  to  the  Divinity  : 
it  was  upon  their  absurd  and  unreason- 
able mode  of  governing,  that  they  made 
a  peculiar  jurisprudence  for  God. — 
Hence  we  see  that  the  most  wicked  of 
men  have  served  as  a  model  for  God,  and 
that  the  most  unjust  governments  were 
made  the  model  of  his  divine  adminis- 
tration. In  despite  of  his  cruelty  and 
his  unreasonableness,  man  never  ceases 
to  say,  that  he  is  most  just  and  full  of 
wisdom. 

Men,  in  all  countries,  have  paid  ado- 
ration to  fantastical,  unjust,  sanguin- 
ary, implacable  Gods,  whose  rights 
they  have  never  dared  to  examine. — 
These  Gods  were  every  where  cruel, 
dissolute,  and  partial ;  they  resembled 
those  unbridled  tyrants  who  riot  with 
impunity  in  the  misery  of  their  sub- 
jects, who  are  too  weak,  or  too  much 
hoodwinked  to  resist  them,  or  to  with- 
draw themselves  from  under  that  yoke 
with  which  they  are  overwhelmed.  It 
is  a  God  of  this  hideous  character 
which  they  make  us  adore,  even  at  the 
present  day  ;  the  God  of  the  Chris- 
tians, like  those  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  punishes  us  in  this  world,  and 
will  punish  us  in  another,  for  those 
faults  of  which  the  nature  he  hai  11 
given  us  has  rendered  us  susceptibl j. 
Like  a  monarch,  inebriated  with  his  a  i- 
thority,  he  makes  a  vain  parade  of  his 
power,  and  appears  only  to  be  occupied 
with  the  puerile  pleasure  of  showing 
that  he  is  master,  and  that  he  is  not 
subjected  to  any  law.  He  punishes  us 
for  being  ignorant  of  his  inconceivable 
essence  and  his  obscure  will.  He  pun- 
ishes us  for  the  transgressions  of  our 
fathers ;  his  despotic  caprice  decides 
upon  our  eternal  destiny ;  it  is  accord- 
ing to  his  fatal  decrees,  that  we  be- 
come, in  despite  of  ourselves,  either 
his  friends  or  his  enemies :  he  makes 
us  free  only  that  he  may  have  the  bar- 
barous pleasure  of  chastising  us  for 
those  necessary  abuses  which  our  pas- 
sions or  our  errours  cause  us  to  make 
of  our  liberty.  In  short,  theology 
shows  us,  in  all  ages,  mortals  punished 
for  inevitable  and  necessary  faults,  and 
as  the  unfortunate  playthings  of  a  ty- 
rannical and  wicked  God.* 

*  The  Pagan  theology  never  showed  the 
people  in  the  persons  of  their  Gods  any  thing 
more  than  men  who  were  dissolute,  adulter- 
ers, vindictive,  and  punishing  with  rigour  thoes 


186 


OF  MYTHOLOGY   AND   THEOLOGY1. 


It  was  upon  these  unreasonable  no- 
tions that  the  theologians  throughout 
the  -whole  earth,  founded  the  worship 
which  man  ought  to  render  to  the  Di- 
vinity, who,  without  being  attached  to 
them,  had  the  right  of  binding  them  to 
himself:  his  supreme  power  dispensed 
him  from  all  duty  towards  his  crea- 
tures ;  and  they  obstinately  persisted 
in  looking  upon  themselves  as  culpable 
every  time  they  experienced  calami- 
ties. Do  not  let  us  then  be  at  all  as- 
tonished if  the  religious  man  was -in 
continual  fears;  the  idea  of  God  al- 
ways recalled  to  him  that  of  a  pitiless 
tyrant,  who  sported  with  the  miseries 
of  his  subjects  and  these,  even  without 
knowing  it,  could,  at  each  moment, 
incur  his  displeasure ;  yet  they  never 
dared  tax  him  with  injustice,  because 
they  believed  that  justice  was  not 
made  to  regulate  the  actions  of  an  all- 
powerful  monarch,  whose  elevated  rank 
placed  him  infinitely  above  the  human 
species,  although  they  had  imagined, 
that  he  had  formed  the  universe  en- 
tirely for  man. 

It  is  then  for  want  df  considering 
good  and  evil  as  effects  equally  neces- 
sary ;  it  is  for  want  of  attributing  them 
to  their  true  cause,  that  men  have  crea- 
ted to  themselves  fictitious  causes,  and 
malicious  divinities,  respecting  whom 
nothing  is  able  to  undeceive  them. — 
In  considering  nature  they  however 
would  have  seen  that  physical  evil  is 
a  necessary  consequence  of  the  particu- 
lar properties  of  some  beings;  they 
would  have  acknowledged  that  plagues, 
contagions,  diseases,  are  due  to  phys- 

necessary  crimes  which  were  predicted  by  the 
oracles.  The  Judaical  and  Christian  theology 
shows  us  a  partial  God  who  chooses  or  re- 
jects, who  loves  or  hates,  according  to  his  ca- 
price ;  in  short,  a  tyrant  who  plays  with  his 
creatures;  who  punishes  in  mis  world  the 
whole  human  species  for  the  crimes  of  a  sin- 

§le  man  ;  who  predestinates  the  greater  num- 
er  of  mortals  to  be  his  enemies,  to  the  end 
that  he  may  punish  them  to  all  eternity,  for 
having  received  from  him  the  liberty  of  de- 
claring against  him.  All  the  religions  of  the 
world  have  for  basis  the  omnipotence  of 
God  over  men ;  his  despotism  over  men,  and 
his  Divine  injustice.  From  thence,  among 
the  Christians,  the  doctrine  of  original  sin  ; 
from  thence,  the  theological  notions  upon 
pardon,  upon  the  necessity  of  a  mediator ;  in 
short,  hence  that  ocean  of  absurdities  with 
which  Christian  theology  is  filled.  It  ap- 
pears, generally,  that  a  reasonable  God  would 
not  be  convenient  to  the  interests  of  priests. 


ical  causes  and  particular  circumstan- 
ces— to  combinations  which,  although 
extremely  natural,  are  fatal  to  their 
species ;  and  they  would  have  sought 
in  nature  herself  the  remedies  suitable 
to  diminish  or  cause  those  under  which 
they  suffer  to  cease.  They  would  have 
seen  in  like  manner  that  moral  evil  was 
only  a  necessary  consequence  of  their 
bad  institutions  ;  that  it  was  not  to  the 
God  of  heaven,  but  to  the  injustice  of 
the  princes  of  the  earth  to  which  those 
wars,  that  poverty,  those  famines,  those 
reverses,  those  calamities,  those  vices, 
and  those  crimes  under  which  they 
groan  so  frequently,  were  to  be  ascribed. 
Thus  to  throw  aside  these  evils  they 
should  not  have  uselessly  extended 
their  trembling  hands  towards  phan- 
toms incapable  of  relieving  them,  and 
who  were  not  the  authors  of  their  sor- 
rows ;  they  should  have  sought  in  a 
more  rational  administration,  in  more 
equitable  laws,  in  more  reasonable  in- 
stitutions, the  remedies  for  these  mis- 
fortunes which  they  falsely  attributed 
to  the  vengeance  of  a  God,  who  is 
painted  to  them  under  the  character  of 
a  tyrant,  at  the  same  time  that  they  are 
defended  from  entertaining  a  doubt  of 
his  justice  and  his  goodness. 

Indeed  priests  never  cease  repeating 
that  their  God  is  infinitely  good ;  that 
he  only  wishes  the  good  of  his  crea- 
tures ;  that  he  has  made  every  thing 
only  for  them:  and  in  despite  of  these 
assurances,  so  flattering,  the  idea  of 
his  wickedness  will  necessarily  be  the 
strongest ;  it  is  much  more  likely  to  fix 
the  attention  of  mortals  than  that  of 
his  goodness ;  this  gloomy  idea  is  al- 
ways the  first  that  presents  itself  to  the 
human  mind,  whenever  it  is  occupied 
with  the  Divinity.  The  idea  of  evil 
necessarily  makes  a  much  more  lively 
impression  upon  man  than  that  of 
good;  in  consequence,  the  beneficent 
God  Avill  always  be  eclipsed  by  the 
dreadful  God.  Thus,  whether  they 
admit  a  plurality  of  Gods  of  opposite 
interests,  whether  they  acknowledge 
only  one  monarch  in  the  universe,  the 
sentiment  of  fear  will  necessarily  pre- 
vail over  love ;  they  will  only  adore 
the  good  God  that  they  may  prevent 
him  from  exercising  his  caprice,  his 
phantasms,  his  malice  ;  it  is  always 
inquietude  and  terrour  that  throws  man 
at  his  feetj  it  is  his  rigour  and  his 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


137 


severity  which  they  seek  to  disarm.  In 
short,  although  they  every  where  as- 
sure us  that  the  Divinity  is  full  of  com- 
passion, of  clemency,  and  of  goodness, 
it  is  always  a  malicious  genius,  a  ca- 
pricious master,  a  formidable  demon,  to 
•whom  every  where  they  render  servile 
homage,  and  a  worship  dictated  by  fear. 

These  dispositions  have  nothing  in 
them  that  ought  to  surprise  us ;  we  can 
accord  with  sincerity  our  confidence 
and  our  love  only  to  those  in  whom  we 
find  a  permanent  will  to  render  us  ser- 
vice; as  soon  as  we  have  reason  to 
suspect  in  them  the  will,  the  power,  or 
the  right  to  injure  us,  their  idea  afflicts 
us,  we  fear  them,  we  mistrust  them, 
and  we  take  precautions  against  them ; 
we  hate  them  from  the  bottom  of  our 
hearts,  even  without  daring  to  avow 
our  sentiments.  If  the  Divinity  must 
be  looked  upon  as  the  common  source 
of  the  good  and  evil  which  happens  in 
this  world ;  if  he  has  the  will  some- 
times to  render  men  happy,  and  some- 
times to  plunge  them  in  misery,  or 
punish  them  with  rigour,  men  must  ne- 
cessarily dread  his  caprice  or  his  sever- 
ity, and  be  much  more  occupied  with 
these,  which  they  see  him  resolved  up- 
on so  frequently,  than  with  his  good- 
ness. Thus  the  idea  of  their  celestial 
monarch  must  always  make  man  un- 
easy ;  the  severity  of  his  judgments 
must  cause  him  to  tremble  much'often- 
er  than  his  goodness  is  able  to  console 
or  encourage  him. 

If  we  pay  attention  to  this  truth,  we 
shall  feel  why  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  have  trembled  before  their  Gods 
and  have  rendered  them  the  most  fan- 
tastical, irrational,  mournful  and  cruel 


worship ;  they  have  served  them  as 
they  would  despots  but  little  in  accord 
with  themselves,  knowing  no  other 
rule  than  their  fantasies,  sometimes 
favourable,  and  more  frequently  preju- 
dicial to  their  subjects;  in  short,  like 
inconstant  masters,  who  are  less  ami- 
able by  their  kindness,  than  dreadful 
by  their  punishments,  by  their  malice, 
and  by  those  rigours  which  they  still 
never  dared  to  find  unjust  or  excessive. 
Here  is  the  reason  why  we  see  the 
adorers  of  a  God,  whom  they  unceas- 
ingly show  to  mortals  as  the  model 
of  goodness,  of  equity,  and  every  per- 
fection, deliver  themselves  up  to  the 
most  cruel  extravagances  against  them- 
selves, with  a  view  of  punishing  them- 
selves, and  of  preventing  the  celestial 
vengeance,  and  at  the  same  time  com- 
mit the  most  hideous  crimes  against 
others,  when  they  believe  that  by  so 
doing  they  can  disarm  the  anger,  ap- 
pease the  justice,  and  recall  the  clem- 
ency of  their  God.  All  the  religious 
systems  of  men,  their  sacrifices,  their 
prayers,  their  customs  and  their  cere- 
monies have  never  had  for  object 
any  thing  else  than  to  avert  the  fury 
of  the  Divinity,  prevent  his  caprice, 
and  excite  in  him  those  sentiments  of 
goodness,  from  which  they  see  him 
deviate  every  instant.  All  the  efforts, 
all  the  subtilties  of  theology  have 
never  had  any  other  end  than  to  recon- 
cile in  the  sovereign  of  nature  those 
discordant  ideas  which  it  has  itself 
given  birth  to  in  the  minds  of  mortals. 
We  might  justly  define  this  end  the  art 
of  composing  chimeras,  by  combining 
together  qualities  which  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  reconcile  with  each  other. 


END   OF   VOLUME   FIRST. 


THE 


SYSTEM  OF  NATURE, 


OR, 


LAWS  OF  THE  MORAL,  AND  PHYSICAL,  WORLD: 


BY 


BARON   D'HOLBACH, 


AUTHOR  OF  GOOD  SENSE.  ETC. 


A  NEW  AND  IMPROVED  EDITION, 


WITH    NOTES    BY    DIDEROT, 


NOW  TRANSLATED  FOR  THE  FIRST  TIME 


H.    D.    ROBINSON. 


VOL.  II. 


ENQUIRERS'  FAMILY  LIBRARY  EDITION  ) 

NEW    YORK: 
PUBLISHED    BY   G.   W.   &  A.   J.   MATSELL, 

94  CHATHAM  STREET. 

1835. 


J  V/ 


OF  MYTHOLOGY  AND  THEOLOGY. 


THE    SYSTEM    OF    NATURE. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Of  the  confused  and  contradictory  ideas  of 
Theology. 

EVERY  thing  that  has  been  said, 
proves  pretty  clearly,  that  in  despite  of 
all  his  efforts,  man  has  never  been  able 
to  prevent  himself  from  drawing  toge- 
ther from  his  own  peculiar  nature,  the 
qualities  he  has  assigned  to  the  being 
who  governs  the  universe.  The  con- 
tradictions necessarily  resulting  from 
the  incompatible  assemblage  of  these 
human  qualities,  which  cannot  become 
suitable  to  the  same  subject,  seeing 
that  the  existence  of  one  destroys  the 
existence  of  the  other,  have  been 
shown : —  the  theologians  themselves 
have  felt  the  insurmountable  difficul- 
ties which  their  Divinities  presented  to 
reason :  they  were  so  substantive,  that 
as  they  felt  the  impossibility  of  with- 
drawing themselves  out  of  the  dilem- 
ma, they  endeavoured  to  prevent  man 
from  reasoning,  by  throwing  his  mind 
into  confusion — by  continually  aug- 
menting the  perplexity  of  those  ideas, 
already  so  discordant,  which  they  offer- 
ed him  of  their  God.  By  this  means 
they  enveloped  him  in  mystery,  covered 
him  with  dense  clouds,  rendered  him 
inaccessible  to  mankind:  thus  they 
themselves  became  the  interpreters,  the 
masters  of  explaining,  according  either 
to  their  fancy  or  their  interest,  the  ways 
of  that  enigmatical  being  they  made 
him  adore.  For  this  purpose  they  ex- 
aggerated him  more  and  more — neither 
time  nor  space,  nor  the  entire  of  nature 
could  contain  his  immensity  —  every 
thing  became  an  impenetrable  mystery. 
Although  man  has  originally  borrowed 
from  himself  the  traits,  the  colours,  the 
primitive  lineaments  of  which  he  com- 
posed his  God ;  although  he  has  made 
him  a  jealous  powerful,  vindictive 


monarch,  yet  his  theology,  by  force  of 
dreaming,  entirely  lost  sight  of  human 
nature ;  and  in  order  to  render  his  Di- 
vinities still  more  different  from  their 
creatures,  it  assigned  them,  over  and 
above  the  usual  qualities  of  man,  pro- 
perties so  marvellous,  so  uncommon, 
so  far  removed  from  every  thing  of 
which  his  mind  could  form  a  concep- 
tion, that  he  lost  sight  of  them  himself. 
From  thence  he  persuaded  himself  these 
qualities  were  divine,  because  he  could 
no  longer  comprehend  them ;  he  be- 
lieved them  worthy  of  God,  because 
no  man  could  figure  to  himself  any  one 
distinct  idea  of  him.  Thus  theology 
obtained  the  point  of  persuading  man 
he  must  believe  that  which  he  could 
not  conceive ;  that  he  must  receive  with 
submission  improbable  systems;  that 
he  must  adopt,  with  pious  deference, 
conjectures  contrary  to  his  reason ; 
that  this  reason  itself  was  the  most 
agreeable  sacrifice  he  could  make  on 
the  altars  of  his  fantastical  master  who 
was  unwilling  he  should  use  the  gift 
he  had  bestowed  upon  him.  In  short, 
it  had  made  mortals  implicitly  believe 
that  they  were  not  formed  to  compre- 
hend the  thing  of  all  others  the  most 
important  to  themselves.*  On  the  other 
hand,  man  persuaded  himself  that  the 
gigantic,  the  truly  incomprehensible  at- 
tributes which  were  assigned  to  his  ce- 
lestial monarch,placed  between  him  and 
his  slaves  a  distance  so  immense,  that 
this  proud  master  could  not  be  by  any 
means  offended  with  the  comparison ; 
that  these  distinctions  rendered  him 
still  greater;  made  him  more  powerful, 


*Itis  quite  evident  that  every  religion  is 
founded  upon  the  absurd  principle,  that  man 
is  obliged  to  accredit  finally,  that  which  he  is 
in  the  most  complete  impossibility  of  com- 
prehending. According  even  to  theological 
notions,  man,  by  his  nature,  must  be  in  an 
invincible  ignorance  relatively  to  God. 

191      / 


192 


CONFUSED   AND    CONTRADICTORY. 


more  marvellous,  more  inaccessible  to 
observation.  Man  always  entertains 
the  idea,  that  what  he  is  not  in  a  con- 
dition to  conceive,  is  much  more  noble, 
much  more  respectable,  than  that  which 
he  has  the  capacity  to  comprehend :  he 
imagines  that  his  God,  like  tyrants, 
does  not  wish  to  be  examined  too 
closely. 

These  prejudices  in  man  for  the  mar- 
vellous, appear  to  have  been  the  source 
that  gave  birth  to  those  wonderful,  un- 
intelligible qualities  with  which  theo- 
logy clothed  the  sovereign  of  the  world. 
The  invincible  ignorance  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  whose  fears  reduced  him 
to  despair,  engendered  those  obscure, 
vague  notions,  with  which  he  decorat- 
ed his  God.  He  believed  he  could  never 
displease  him,  provided  he  rendered 
him  incommensurable,  impossible  to  be 
compared  with  any  thing  of  which  he 
had  a  knowledge  ;  either  with  that 
which  was  most  sublime,  or  that  which 
possessed  the  greatest  magnitude.  From 
hence  the  multitude  of  negative  attri- 
butes with  which  ingenious  dreamers 
have  successively  embellished  their 
phantom  God,  to  the  end  that  they 
might  more  surely  form  a  being  distin- 
guished from  all  others,  or  which  pos- 
sessed nothing  in  common  with  that 
which  the  human  mind  had  the  faculty 
of  being  acquainted  with. 

The  theological  metaphysical  attri- 
butes, were  in  fact  nothing  but  pure  ne- 
gations of  the  qualities  found  in  man, 
or  in  those  beings  of  which  he  has  a 
knowledge ;  by  these  attributes  their 
God  was  supposed  exempted  from  eve- 
ry thing  which  they  considered  weak- 
ness or  imperfection  in  him,  or  in  the 
beings  by  whom  he  is  surrounded.  To 
say  that  God  is  infinite,  as  has  been 
shown,  is  only  to  affirm,  that  unlike 
man,  or  the  beings  with  whom  he  is 
acquainted,  he  is  not  circumscribed  by 
the  limits  of  space;  this,  however,  is 
what  he  can  never  in  any  manner  com- 
prehend, because  he  is  himself  finite.* 

*  Hobbes,  in  his  Leviathan,  says :  "Whatso- 
ever we  imagine,  is  finite.  Therefore  there  is 
no  idea,  or  conception  of  any  thing  we  call 
infinite.  No  man  can  have  in  his  mind  an 
image  of  infinite  magnitude,  nor  conceive  in- 
finite swiftness,  infinite  time,  infinite  force,  or 
infinite  power.  When  we  say  any  thing  is 
infinite,  we  signify  only,  that  we  are  not  able 
to  conceive  the  ends  and  bound  of  the  thing 


When  it  is  said  that  God  is  eternal,  it 
signifies  he  has  not  had,  like  man  or  like 
every  thing  that  exists,  a  beginning,  and 
that  he  will  never  have  an  end  :  to  say 
he  is  immutable,  is  to  say  that  unlike 
himself  or  every  thing  which  he  sees, 
God  is  not  subject  to  change :  to  say  he 
is  immaterial,  is  to  advance,  that  their 
substance  or  essence  is  of  a  nature  not 
conceivable  by  himself,  but  which  must 
from  that  very  circumstance  be  totally 
different  from  every  thing  of  which  he 
has  cognizance. 

It  is  from  the  confused  collection  of 
these  negative  qualities,  that  has  re- 
sulted the  theological  God  ;  the  meta- 
physical whole  of  which  it  is  impos- 
sible for  man  to  form  to  himself  any 
correct  idea.  In  this  abstract  being 
every  thing  is  infinity — immensity — 
spirituality  —  omniscience —  order  — 
wisdom  —  intelligence  —  omnipotence. 
In  combining  these  vague  terms,  or 
these  modifications,  the  priests  believ- 
ed they  formed  something,  they  extend- 
ed these  qualities  by  thought,  and  they 
imagined  they  made  a  God,  whilst  they 
only  composed  a  chimera.  They  im- 
agined that  these  perfections  or  these 
qualities  must  be  suitable  to  this  God, 
because  they  were  not  suitable  to  any 
thing  of  which  they  had  a  knowledge ; 
they  believed  that  an  incomprehensible 
being  must  have  inconceivable  quali- 
ties. These  were  the  materials  of  which 
theology  availed  itself  to  compose  the 
inexplicable  phantom  before  which  they 
commanded  the  human  race  to  bend 
the  knee. 

Nevertheless,  a  being  so  vague,  so 
impossible  to  be  conceived,  so  incap- 
able of  definition,  so  far  removed  from 
every  thing  of  which  man  could  have 
any  knowledge,  was  but  little  calcu- 
lated to  fix  his  restless  views ;  his 
mind  requires  to  be  arrested  by  quali- 
ties which  he  is  capacitated  to  ascer- 
tain— of  which  he  is  in  a  condition  to 
form  ajudgment.  Thus  after  it  had  sub- 
tilized this  metaphysical  God,  after  it 

named,  having  no  conception  of  the  thing, 
but  of  our  own  inability."  Sherlock  says : 
"The  word  infinite  is  only  a  negation,  which 
signifies  that  which  has  neither  end,  nor  limits, 
nor  extent,  and,  consequently,  that  which  has 
no  positive  and  determinate  nature,  and  is 
therefore  nothing ;"  he  adds,  "  that  nothing 
but  custom  has  caused  this  word  to  be  adopt- 
ed, which  without  that,  would  appear  deroid 
of  sense,  and  a  contradiction." 


IDEAS   OF  THEOLOGY. 


193 


had  rendered  him  so  different  in  idea, 
from  every  thing  that  acts  upon  the 
senses,  theology  found  itself  under  the 
necessity  of  again  assimilating  him  to 
man,  from  whom  it  had  so  far  removed 
him :  it  therefore  again  made  him  hu- 
man by  the  moral  qualities  which  it 
assigned  him ;  it  felt  that  without  this 
it  would  not  be  able  to  persuade  man- 
kind there  could  possibly  exist  any  re- 
lation between  him  and  the  vague, 
ethereal,  fugitive,  incommensurable  be- 
ing they  are  called  upon  to  adore. 
They  perceived  that  this  marvellous 
God  was  only  calculated  to  exercise 
the  imagination  of  some  few  thinkers, 
whose  minds  were  accustomed  to  la- 
bour upon  chimerical  subjects,  or  to 
take  words  for  realities ;  in  short  it 
found,  that  for  the  greater  number  of  the 
material  children  of  the  earth  it  was 
necessary  to  have  a  God  more  analo- 
gous to  themselves,  more  sensible, 
more  known  to  them.  In  consequence 
the  Divinity  was  reclothed  with  human 
qualities ;  theology  never  felt  the  in- 
compatibility of  these  qualities  with  a 
being  it  had  made  essentially  different 
from  man,  who  consequently  could 
neither  have  his  properties,  nor  be 
modified  like  himself.  It  did  not  see 
that  a  God  who  was  immaterial,  desti- 
tute of  corporeal  organs,  was  neither 
able  to  think  nor  to  act  as  material  be- 
ings, whose  peculiar  organizations  ren- 
der them  susceptible  of  the  qualities, 
the  feelings,  the  will,  the  virtues,  that 
are  found  in  them.  The  necessity  it 
felt  to  assimilate  God  to  their  worship- 
pers, to  make  an  affinity  between  them, 
made  it  pass  over  without  considera- 
tion these  palpable  contradictions,  and 
thus  theology  obstinately  continued  to 
unite  those  incompatible  qualities,  that 
discrepance  of  character,  which  the 
human  mind  attempted  in  vain  either 
to  conceive  or  to  reconcile:  according 
to  it,  a  pure  spirit  was  the  mover  of  the 
material  world ;  an  immense  being  was 
enabled  to  occupy  space,  without  how- 
ever excluding  nature ;  an  immutable 
deity  was  the  cause  of  those  continual 
changes  operated  in  the  world :  an  om- 
nipotent being  did  not  prevent  those 
evils  which  were  displeasing  to  him  ; 


There  is  not  less  discrepance,  less 
incompatibility,  less  discordance  in  the 
human  perfections,  less  contradiction 
in  the  moral  qualities  attributed  to  them, 
to  the  end  that  man  might  be  enabled 
to  form  to  himself  some  idea  of  this 
being.  These  were  all  said  to  be  emi- 
nently possessed  by  God,  although  they 
every  moment  contradicted  each  other: 
by  this  means  they  formed  a  kind  of 
patch-work  character,  a  heterogenous 
being,  entirely  inconceivable  to  man, 
because  nature  had  never  constructed 
any  thing  like  him,  whereby  he  was 
enabled  to  form  a  judgment.  Man 
was  assured  that  God  was  eminently 
good — that  it  was  visible  in  all  his 
actions.  Now  goodness  is  a  known 
quality,  recognisable  in  some  beings  of 
the  human  species ;  this  is,  above  every 
other,  a  property  he  is  desirous  to  find 
in  all  those  upon  whom  he  is  in  a  state 
of  dependance;  but  he  is  unable  to  be- 
stow the  title  of  good  on  any  among 
his  fellows,  except  their  actions  pro- 
duce on  him  those  effects  which  he  ap- 
proves— that  he  finds  in  unison  with 
his  existence — in  conformity  with  his 
own  peculiar  modes  of  thinking.  It 
was  evident,  according  to  this  reason- 
ing, that  God  did  not  impress  him  with 
this  idea ;  he  was  said  to  be  equally 
the  author  of  his  pleasures,  as  of  his 
pains,  which  were  to  be  either  secured 
or  averted  by  sacrifices  or  prayers :  but 
when  man  suffered  by  contagion,  when 
he  was  the  victim  of  shipwreck,  when 
his  country  was  desolated  by  war, 
when  he  saw  whole  nations  devoured 
by  rapacious  earthquakes,  when  he  was 
a  prey  to  the  keenest  sorrows,  how 
could  he  conceive  the  bounty  of  that 
being?  How  could  he  perceive  the 
order  he  had  introduced  into  the  world, 
while  he  groaned  under  such  a  mul- 
titude of  calamities?  How  was  he 
able  to  discern  the  beneficence  of  a 
God  whom  he  beheld  sporting  as  it  were 
with  his  species  ?  How  could  he  con- 
ceive the  consistency  of  that  being  who 
destroyed  that  which  he  was  assured 
he  had  taken  such  pains  to  establish, 
solely  for  his  own  peculiar  happiness  ? 
What  becomes  of  those  final  causes, 
which,  without  any  ground,  they  give  as 


VT  U.0       ><  111.  Vll      *  V  tit     UlJILJltGLOlllCl       id       Ail  111    j  *'  11 IV 11.     TV  11.11  \_Sll  L   (111  V     £^J\JU11U.    11AVV     H*~^  <**3 

the  source  of  order  submitted  to  confu-  I  the  most  incontestable  proof  of  the  ex- 


sion :  in  short,  the  wonderful  properties 
of  this  theological  being   every   mo- 
ment contradicted  themselves. 
No.  VII.— 25 


istence  of  an  omnipotent  and  wise  God, 
who,nevertheless,can  preserve  his  work 
only  by  destroying  it,  and  who  has  not 


194 


CONFUSED  AND   CONTRADICTORY 


been  able  to  give  it  all  at  once  that  de- 
gree of  perfection  and  consistency,  of 
which  it  was  susceptible.  God  is  said 
to  hare  created  the  universe  only  for 
man,  and  was  willing  that,  under  him, 
he  should  be  king  of  nature.  Feeble 
monarch !  of  whom  a  grain  of  sand, 
some  atoms  of  bile,  some  misplaced 
humours,  destroy  at  once  the  existence 
and  the  reign:  yet  thou  pretendest  that  a 
good  God  has  made  every  thing  for  thee! 
Thou  desirest  that  the  entire  of  nature 
should  be  thy  domain,  and  thou  canst 
not  even  defend  thyself  from  the 
slightest  of  her  shocks  !  Thou  makest 
to  thyself  a  God  for  thyself  alone ; 
thou  supposest  that  he  watcheth  for  thy 
preservation;  thou  supposest  that  he 
unceasingly  occupieth  himself  only  for 
thy  peculiar  happiness  ;  thou  imagines! 
every  thing  was  made  solely  for  thy 
pleasure  ;  and,  following  up  thy  pre- 
sumptuous ideas,  thou  hast  the  auda- 
city to  call  him  good  !  seest  thou  not 
that  the  kindness  exhibited  towards 
thee,  in  common  with  other  beings,  is 
contradicted  ?  Dost  thou  not  see  that 
those  beasts  which  thou  supposest  sub- 
mitted to  thine  empire,  frequently  de- 
vour thy  fellow-creatures ;  that  fire  con- 
sumeththem;  that  the  ocean  swallow- 
eth  them  up;  that  those  elements  of 
which  thou  admirest  the  order,  fre- 
quently sweep  them  off  the  face  of  the 
earth?  Dost  thou  not  see  that  this 
power,  which  thou  callest  God,  which 
thou  pretendest  laboureth  only  for  thee, 
which  thou  supposest  entirely  occupied 
with  thy  species,  flattered  by  thy  hom- 
age, touched  with  thy  prayers,  cannot 
be  called  good,  since  he  acts  necessa- 
rily ?  Indeed,  according  to  thy  own 
ideas,  dost  thou  not  admit  that  thy  God 
is  the  universal  cause  of  all,  who  must 
think  of  maintaining  the  great  whole, 
from  which  thou  hast  so  foolishly  dis- 
tinguished him.  Is  he  not  then  accord- 
ing to  thyself,  the  God  of  nature — of 
the  ocean — of  rivers — of  mountains — 
of  the  earth,  in  which  thou  occupiest 
so  very  small  a  space — of  all  those 
other  globes  that  thou  seest  roll  in  the 
regions  of  space — of  those  orbs  that 
revolve  round  the  sun  that  enlighteneth 
thee? — Cease,  then,  obstinately  to  per- 
sist in  beholding  nothing  but  thyself 
in  nature ;  do  not  natter  thyself  that 
the  human  race,  which  reneweth  itself, 
which  disappeared  like  the  leaves  on 


the  trees,  can  absorb  all  the  care,  can 
engross  all  the  tenderness  of  the  uni- 
versal being,  who,  according  to  thyself, 
ruleth  the  destiny  of  all  things. 

What  is  the  human  race  compared 
to  the  earth  ?  What  is  this  earth  com- 
pared to  the  sun  ?  What  is  our  sun 
compared  to  those  myriads  of  suns 
which  at  immense  distances  occupy  the 
regions  of  space  1  not  for  the  purpose 
of  diverting  thy  weak  eyes ;  not  with 
a  view  to  excite  thy  stupid  admiration, 
as  thou  vainly  imaginest ;  since  multi- 
tudes of  them  are  placed  out  of  the 
range  of  thy  visual  organs,  but  to  oc- 
cupy the  place  Avhich  necessity  hath 
assigned  them.  Mortal,  feeble  and 
vain !  restore  thyself  to  thy  proper 
sphere ;  acknowledge  every  where  the 
effect  of  necessity ;  recognise  in  thy 
benefits,  behold  in  thy  sorrows,  the  dif- 
ferent modes  of  action  of  those  various 
beings  endowed  with  such  a  variety 
of  properties  of  which  nature  is  the 
assemblage  ;  and  do  not  any  longer 
suppose  that  its  pretended  mover  can 
possess  such  incompatible  qualities  as 
would  be  the  result  of  human  views, 
or  of  visionary  ideas,  which  have  no 
existence  but  in  thyself. 

Notwithstanding  experience,  which 
contradicts  at  each  moment  the  benefi- 
cent views  which  man  supposes  in 
his  God,  theologians  do  not  cease  to 
call  him  good  :  when  he  complains  of 
the  disorders  and  calamities  of  which 
he  is  so  frequently  the  victim,  they  as- 
sure him  that  these  evils  are  only  ap- 
parent: they  tell  him,  that  if  his  limit- 
ed mind  were  capable  of  fathoming  the 
depths  of  divine  wisdom  and  the  treas- 
ures of  his  goodness,  he  would  always 
find  the  greatest  benefits  to  result  from 
that  which  he  calls  evil.  But  in  spite 
of  these  frivolous  answers,  man  will 
never  be  able  to  find  good  but  in  those 
objects  which  impel  him  in  a  manner 
favourable  to  his  actual  mode  of  exist- 
ence ;  he  shall  always  be  obliged  to 
find  confusion  and  evil  in  every  thing 
that  painfully  affects  him,  even  curso- 
rily :  if  God  is  the  author  of  those  two 
modes  of  feeling,  so  very  opposite  to 
each  other,  he  must  naturally  conclude 
that  this  being  is  sometimes  good  and 
sometimes  wicked ;  at  least,  if  he  will 
not  allow  either  the  one  or  the  other, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  he  acts  neces- 
sarily. A  world  where  man  esperi- 


IDEAS  OF  THEOLOGY. 


195 


ences  so  much  evil  cannot  be  submit- 
ted to  a  God  who  is  perfectly  good ; 
on  the  other  hand,  a  world  where  he 
experiences  so  many  benefits,  cannot 
be  governed  by  a  wicked  God.  Thus 
he  is  obliged  to  admit  of  two  principles 
equally  powerful,  who  are  in  hostility 
with  each  other;  or  rather,  he  must 
agree  that  the  same  God  is  alternately 
kind  and  unkind ;  this  after  all  is  no- 
thing more  than  avowing  he  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  he  is ;  in  this  case  is  it 
not  useless  to  sacrifice  to  him,  to  pray, 
seeing  it  would  be  nothing  but  destiny — 
the  necessity  of  things  submitted  to 
invariable  rules. 

In  order  to  justify  this  God  from  the 
evils  the  human  species  experience, 
the  deist  is  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  calling  them  punishments  inflicted 
by  a  just  God  for  the  transgressions 
of  man.  If  so,  man  has  the  power  to 
make  his  God  suffer.  To  offend  pre- 
supposes relations  between  the  one 
who  offends  and  another  who  is  offend- 
ed ;  but  what  relations  can  exist  be- 
tween the  infinite  being  who  has  cre- 
ated the  world  and  feeble  mortals? 
To  offend  any  one,  is  to  diminish  the 
sum  of  his  happiness ;  it  is  to  afflict 
him,  to  deprive  him  of  something,  to 
make  him  experience  a  painful  sensa- 
tion. How  is  it  possible  man  can  ope- 
rate on  the  well-being  of  the  omnipo- 
tent sovereign  of  nature,  whoste  happi- 
ness is  unalterable  ?  How  can  the 
physical  actions  of  a  material  sub- 
stance have  any  influence  over  an  im- 
material substance,  devoid  of  parts, 
having  no  point  of  contact  ?  How  can 
a  corporeal  being  make  an  incorporeal 
being  experience  incommodious  sensa- 
tions ?  On  the  other  hand,  justice, 
according  to  the  only  ideas  man  can 
ever  form  of  it,  supposes  a  permanent 
disposition  to  render  to  each  what  is 
due  to  him ;  the  theologian  will  not 
admit  that  God  owes  any  thing  to  man ; 
he  insists  that  the  benefits  he  bestows 
are  all  the  gratuitous  effects  of  his 
own  goodness ;  that  he  has  the  right 
to  dispose  of  the  work  of  his  hands 
according  to  his  own  pleasure ;  to 
plunge  it  if  he  please  into  the  abyss 
of  misery.  But  it  is  easy  to  see,  that 
according  to  man's  idea  of  justice,  this 
does  not  even  contain  the  shadow  of  it ; 
that  it  is,  in  fact,  the  mode  of  action 
adopted  by  what  he  calls  the  most  fright- 


ful  tyrants.  How  then  can  he  be  indu- 
ced to  call  God  just  who  acts  after  this 
manner?  Indeed,  while  he  sees  in- 
nocence suffering,  virtue  in  tears,  crime 
triumphant,  vice  recompensed,  and  at 
the  same  time  is  told  the  being  whom 
theology  has  invented  is  the  author, 
he  will  never  be  able  to  acknowledge 
them  to  have  justice.*  But,  says  the 
deist,  these  evils  are  transient;  they 
will  only  last  for  a  time:  very  well, 
but  then  your  God  is  unjust,  at  least 
for  a  time.  It  is  for  their  good  that  he 
chastises  his  friends.  But  if  he  is  good, 
how  can  he  consent  to  let  them  suffer 
even  for  a  time  ?  If  he  knows  every 
thing  why  reprove  his  favourites  from 
whom  he  has  nothing  to  fear?  If  he 
is  really  omnipotent,  why  not  spare 
them  these  transitory  pains,  and  pro- 
cure them  at  once  a  durable  and  per- 
manent felicity  ?  If  his  power  cannot 
be  shaken,  why  make  himself  uneasy 
at  the  vain  conspiracies  they  would 
form  against  him  ? 

Where  is  the  man  filled  with  kind- 
ness, endowed  with  humanity,  who 
does  not  desire  Avith  all  his  heart  to 
render  his  fellow-creatures  happy  ?  If 
God  really  had  man's  qualities  aug- 
mented, would  he  not  by  the  sam^  rea- 
soning, exercise  his  infinite  pov  u>  'o 
render  them  all  happy  ?  Nevertheless 
we  scarcely  find  any  one  who  is  perfect- 
ly satisfied  with  his  condition  on  earth  : 
for  one  mortal  that  enjoys,  we  behold 
a  thousand  who  suffer ;  for  one  rich 
man  who  lives  in  the  midst  of  abun- 
dance, there  are  thousands  of  poor  who 
want  common  necessaries :  whole  na- 
tions groan  in  indigence,  to  satisfy  the 
passions  of  some  avaricious  princes, 
of  some  few  nobles,  who  are  not  there- 
by rendered  more  contented — who  do 
not  acknowledge  themselves  more  for- 
tunate on  that  account.  In  short,  un- 


*  Dies  deficid  si  relim  numerare  quibus 
bonis  male  erenerit  ;  nee  "minus  si  commcmo- 
rem  'quibus  malis  optime. 

Cicer.  de  Nat.  Deor.  lib.  iii. 

If  a  virtuous  king  possessed  the  ring  of 
Gy^es,  that  is  to  say,  had  the  faculty  of  ren- 
dering himself  invisible,  would  he  not  make 
use  of  it  to  remedy  abuses  to  reward  the 
good,  to  prevent  the  conspiracies  of  the  wick- 
ed, to  make  order  and  happiness  reign  through- 
out his  states  ?  God  is  an  invisible  and  all- 
powerful  monarch,  nevertheless  his  states  are 
the  theatre  of  crime,  of  confusion  :  he  reme- 
dies nothing. 


196 


CONFUSED   AND   CONTRADICTORY 


der  the  dominion  of  an  omnipotent 
God,  whose  goodness  is  infinite,  the 
earth  is  drenched  with  the  tears  of  the 
miserable.  What  must  be  the  infer- 
ence from  all  this  ?  That  God  is  either 
negligent  of,  or  incompetent  to,  his 
happiness.  But  the  deist  will  tell  you 
coolly,  that  the  judgments  of  his  God 
are  impenetrable !  How  do  we  under- 
stand this  term?  Not  to  be  taught — 
not  to  be  informed — impervious — not 
to  be  pierced :  in  this  case  it  would  be 
an  unreasonable  question  to  inquire  by 
what  authority  do  you  reason  upon 
them  ?  How  do  you  become  acquaint- 
ed with  these  impenetrable  mysteries  1 
Upon  what  foundation  do  you  attribute 
virtues  which  you  cannot  penetrate? 
What  idea  do  you  form  to  yourself  of 
a  justice  that  never  resembles  that  of 
man? 

To  withdraw  themselves  from  this, 
deists  will  affirm  that  the  justice  of 
their  God  is  tempered  with  mercy,  with 
compassion,  with  goodness :  these  again 
are  human  qualities :  what,  therefore, 
shall  we  understand  by  them  ?  What 
idea  do  we  attach  to  mercy  ?  Is  it  not 
a  derogation  from  the  severe  rules  of 
an  exact,  a  rigorous  justice,  which 
causes  a  remission  of  some  part  of  a 
merited  punishment?  In  a  prince, 
clemency  is  either  a  violation  of  jus- 
tice, or  the  exemption  from  a  too  severe 
law:  but  the  laws  of  a  God  infinitely 
good,  equitable,  and  wise,  can  they 
ever  be  too  severe,  and,  if  immutable, 
can  he  alter  them?  Nevertheless,  man 
approves  of  clemency  in  a  sovereign, 
when  its  too  great  facility  does  not  be- 
come prejudicial  to  society ;  he  esteems 
it,  because  it  announces  humanity, 
mildness,  a  compassionate,  noble  soul; 
qualities  he  prefers  in  his  governors  to 
rigour,  cruelty,  inflexibility:  besides, 
human  laws  are  defective  ;  they  are 
frequently  too  severe ;  they  are  not 
competent  to  foresee  all  the  circum- 
stances of  every  case:  the  punishments 
they  decree  are  not  always  commen- 
surate with  the  offence:  he  therefore 
does  not  always  think  them  just ;  but 
he  feels  very  well,  he  understands  dis- 
tinctly, that  when  the  sovereign  ex- 
tends his  mercy,  he  relaxes  from  his 
justice — that  if  mercy  be  merited,  the 
punishment  ought  not  to  take  place — 
that  then  its  exercise  is  no  longer 
clemency,  but  justice :  thus  he  feels, 


that  in  his  fellow-creatures  these  two 
qualities  cannot  exist  at  the  same  mo- 
ment. How  then  is  he  to  form  his 
judgment  of  a  being  who  is  represent- 
ed to  possess  both  in  the  extrernest 
degree  ? 

They  then  say,  well,  but  in  the  next 
world  this  God  will  reward  you  for  all 
the  evils  you  suffer  in  this :  this,  in- 
deed, is  something  to  look  to,  if  it  had 
not  been  invented  to  shelter  divine 
justice,  and  to  exculpate  him  from 
those  evils  which  he  so  frequently 
causes  his  greatest  favourites  to  expe- 
rience in  this  world :  it  is  there,  deists 
tell  us,  that  the  celestial  monarch  will 
procure  for  his  elect  that  unalterable 
happiness,  which  he  has  refused  them 
on  earth ;  it  is  there  he  will  indemnify 
those  whom  he  loves  for  that  transitory 
injustice,  those  afflicting  trials,  which 
he  makes  them  suffer  here  below.  In 
the  meantime,  is  this  invention  calcu- 
lated to  give  us  those  clear  ideas  suit- 
able to  justify  providence?  If  God 
owes  nothing  to  his  creatures,  upon 
what  ground  can  they  expect,  in  a  fu- 
ture life,  a  happiness  more  real,  more 
constant,  than  that  which  they  at  pre- 
sent enjoy  ?  It  will  be  founded,  say 
theologians,  upon  his  promises  contain- 
ed in  his  revealed  oracles.  But  are 
they  quite  certain  that  these  oracles 
have  emanated  from  him?  On  the 
other  hand,  the  system  of  another  life 
does  not  justify  this  God  for  the  most 
fleeting  and  transitory  injustice;  for 
does  not  injustice,  even  when  it  is 
transient,  destroy  that  immutability 
which  they  attribute  to  the  Divinity  ? 
In  short,  is  not  that  omnipotent  being 
whom  they  have  made  the  author  of 
all  things,  himself  the  first  cause  or 
accomplice  of  the  offences  which  they 
commit  against  him  ?  Is  he  not  the 
true  author  of  evil,  or  of  the  sin  which 
he  permits,  whilst  he  is  able  to  prevent 
it ;  and  in  this  case  can  he,  consistently 
with  justice,  punish  those  whom  he 
himself  renders  culpable  ? 

We  have  already  seen  the  multitude 
of  contradictions,  the  extravagant  hy- 
potheses, which  the  attributes  theology 
gives  to  its  God,  must  necessarily  pro 
duce.  A  being  clothed  at  one  time 
with  so  many  discordant  qualities,  will 
always  be  undefinable ;  they  only  pre- 
sent a  train  .of  ideas  which  will  de- 
stroy each  other,  and  he  will  in  conse- 


IDEAS  OF  THEOLOGY. 


197 


quence  remain  a  being  of  the  imagina- 
tion. This  God  has,  say  they,  created 
the  heavens,  the  earth,  and  the  crea- 
tures who  inhabit  it,  to  manifest  his  own 
peculiar  glory :  but  a  monarch  who  is 
superior  to  all  beings,  who  has  neither 
rivals  nor  equals  in  nature,  who  cannot 
be  compared  to  any  of  his  creatures, 
is  he  susceptible  of  the  desire  of  glory  ? 
Can  he  fear  to  be  debased  and  degrad- 
ed in  the  eyes  of  his  fellow-creatures ? 
Has  he  occasion  for  the  esteem,  the 
homage,  or  the  admiration  of  men? 
The  love  of  glory  is  in  us  only  the  de-- 
sire of  giving  our  fellow-creatures  a 
high  opinion  of  ourselves ;  this  passion 
is  laudable,  when  it  stimulates  us  to 
perform  great  and  useful  actions ;  but 
more  frequently  it  is  only  a  weakness 
attached  to  our  nature,  it  is  only  a  de- 
sire in  us  to  be  distinguished  from 
those  beings  with  whom  we  compare 
ourselves.  The  God  of  whom  they 
speak  to  us,  ought  to  be  exempt  from 
this  passion ;  according  to  theology  he 
has  no  fellow-creatures,  he  has  no  com- 
petitors, he  cannot  be  offended  with 
those  ideas  which  we  form,  of  him. 
His  power  cannot  suffer  any  diminu- 
tion, nothing  is  able  to  disturb  his  eter- 
nal felicity ;  must  we  not  conclude 
from  this  that  he  cannot  be  either  sus- 
ceptible of  desiring  glory,  or  sensible 
to  the  praises  and  esteem  of  men  1  If 
this  God  is  jealous  of  his  prerogatives, 
of  his  titles,  of  his  rank,  and  of  his 
glory,  wherefore  does  he  suffer  that  so 
many  men  should  offend  him?  Why 
does  he  permit  so  many  others  to  have 
such  unfavourable  opinions  of  him? 
Why  allows  he  others  to  have  the 
temerity  to  refuse  him  that  incense 
which  is  so  flattering  to  his  pride  ? — 
How  comes  he  to  permit  that  a  mortal 
like  me,  should  dare  attack  his  rights, 
his  titles,  and  even  his  existence?  It 
is  in  order  to  punish  thee,  you  will  say, 
for  having  made  a  bad  use  of  his  fa- 
vours. But  why  does  he  permit  me  to 
abuse  his  kindness  ?  Or  why  are  not 
the  favours  which  he  confers  on  me 
sufficient  to  make  me  act  agreeably  to 
his  views  ?  It  is  because  he  has  made 
thee  free.  Why  has  he  given  me  lib- 
erty, of  which  he  must  have  foreseen 
that  I  should  be  inclined  to  make  an 
improper  use?  Is  it  then  a  present 
worthy  cf  his  goodness,  to  give  me  a 
faculty  that  enables  me  to  brave  his 


omnipotence,  to  detach  from  him  his 
adorers,  and  thus  render  myself  eter- 
nally miserable  ?  Would  it  not  have 
been  much  more  advantageous  for 
me  never  to  have  been  born,  or  at 
least  to  have  been  placed  in  the  rank 
of  brutes  or  stones,  than  to  have  been 
in  despite  of  myself  placed  amongst 
intelligent  beings,  there  to  exercise  the 
fatal  power  of  losing  myself  without 
redemption,  by  offending  or  mistaking 
the  arbiter  of  my  fate  ?  Had  not  God 
much  better  have  shown  his  omnipo- 
tent goodness,  and  would  he  not  have 
laboured  much  more  efficaciously  to 
his  true  glory,  if  he  had  obliged  me  to 
render  him  homage,  and  thereby  to 
have  merited  an  ineffable  happiness? 

The  system,  of  the  liberty  of  man, 
which  We  have  already  destroyed,  was 
visibly  imagined  to  wipe  from  the  au- 
thor of  nature  the  reproach  which  they 
must  offer  him  in  being  the  author,  the 
source,  the  first  cause  of  the  crimes  of 
his  creatures.  In  consequence  of  this 
fatal  present  given  by  a  beneficent  God, 
men,  according  to  the  sinister  ideas  of 
theology,  will  for  the  most  part  be 
eternally  punished  for  their  faults  in 
this  world.  Farfetched  and  endless 
torments  are  by  the  justice  of  a  mer- 
ciful and  compassionate  God,  reserved 
for  fragile  beings,  for  transitory  offen- 
ces, for  false  reasonings,  for  involun- 
tary errours,  for  necessary  passions, 
which  depend  on  the  temperament 
this  God  has  given  them ;  circumstan- 
ces in  which  he  has  has  placed  them, 
or,  if  they  will,  the  abuse  of  this  pre- 
tended liberty,  which  a  provident  God 
ought  never  to  have  accorded  to  beings 
capable  of  abusing  it.  Should  we  call 
that  father  good,  rational,  just,  clement, 
or  compassionate,  who  should  arm 
with  a  dangerous  and  sharp  knife  the 
hands  of  a  petulant  child,  with  whose 
imprudence  he  was  acquainted,  and 
who  should  punish  him  all  his  life,  for 
having  wounded  himself  with  it? — 
Should  we  call  that  prince  just,  merci- 
ful, and  compassionate,  who  did  not 
proportion  the  punishment  to  the  of- 
fence, who  should  put  no  end  to  the 
torments  of  that  subject  who  in  a  state 
of  inebriety  should  have  transiently 
wounded  his  vanity,  without  however 
causing  him  any  real  injustice — above 
all,  after  having  himself  taken  pains 
to  intoxicate  him?  Should  we  look 


199 


CONFUSED  AND  CONTRADICTORY 


upon  that  monarch  as  all-powerful, 
whose  dominions  should  be  in  such  a 
state  of  anarchy,  that,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  small  number  of  faithful  sub- 
jects, all  the  others  should  have  the 
power  every  instant  to  despise  his 
laws,  insult  him,  and  frustrate  his  will  ? 
O,  theologians  !  confess  that  your  God 
is  nothing  but  a  heap  of  qualities, 
which  form  a  whole  as  perfectly  in- 
comprehensible to  your  mind  as  to 
mine ;  by  dint  of  overburdening  him 
with  incompatible  qualities,  ye  have 
made  him  truly  a  chimera,  which  all 
your  hypotheses  cannot  maintain  in 
the  existence  you  are  anxious  to  give 
him. 

They  will,  however,  reply  to  these 
difficulties,  that  goodness,  wisdom,  and 
justice,  are,  in  God,  qualities  so  emi- 
nent, or  have  such  little  similarity  to 
ours,  that  they  have  no  relation  with 
these  qualities  when  found  in  men. 
But  I  shall  answer,  how  shall  I  form 
to  myself  ideas  of  these  divine  perfec- 
tions, if  they  bear  no  resemblance  to 
those  of  the  virtues  which  I  find  in 
my  fellow-creatures,  or  to  the  disposi- 
tions which  I  feel  in  myself?  If  the 
justice  of  God  is  not  that  of  men  ;  if 
it  operates  in  that  mode  which  men 
call  injustice,  if  his  goodness,  his  clem- 
ency, and  his  wisdom  do  not  manifest 
themselves  by  such  signs,  that  we  are 
able  to  recognise  them ;  if  all  his  divine 
qualities  are  contrary  to  received  ideas ; 
if  in  theology  all  the  human  actions 
are  obscured  or  overthrown,  how  can 
mortals  like  myself  pretend  to  an- 
nounce them,  to  have  a  knowledge  of 
them,  or  to  explain  them  to  others? 
Can  theology  give  to  the  mind  the  in- 
effable boon  of  conceiving  that  which 
no  man  is  in  a  capacity  to  compre- 
hend? Can  it  procure  to  its  agents  the 
marvellous  faculty  of  having  precise 
ideas  of  a  God  composed  of  so  many 
contradictory  qualities?  In  short,  is 
the  theologian  himself  a  God  ? 

They  silence  us  by  saying,  that  God 
himself  has  spoken,  that  he  has  made 
himself  known  to  men.  But  when, 
where,  and  to  whom  has  he  spoken  ? 
Where  are  these  divine  oracles  ?  A 
hundred  voices  raise  themselves  in  the 
same  moment,  a  hundred  hands  shoAV 
them  to  me  in  absurd  and  discordant 
collections:  I  run  them  over,  and 
through  the  whole  i  find  that  the  God 


of  wisdom  has  spoken  an  obscure,  in- 
sidious, and  irrational  language.  I  see 
that  the  God  of  goodness  has  been 
cruel  and  sanguinary;  that  the  God  of 
justice  has  been  unjust  and  partial, 
has  ordered  iniquity  ;  that  the  God  of 
mercies  destines  the  most  hideous 
punishments  to  the  unhappy  victims  of 
his  anger.  Besides,  obstacles  present 
themselves  when  men  attempt  to  verify 
the  pretended  relations  of  a  Divinity, 
who,  in  two  countries,  has  never  literal- 
ly holden  the  same  language  ;  who  has 
spoken  in  so  many  places,  at  so  many 
times,  and  always  so  variously,  that  he 
appears  every  where  to  have  shown 
himself  only  with  the  determined  de- 
sign of  throwing  the  human  mind  into 
the  strangest  perplexity. 

Thus,  the  relations  which  they  sup- 
pose between  men  and  their  God  can 
only  be  founded  on  the  moral  qualities 
of  this  being  ;  if  these  are  not  known 
to  men,  they  cannot  serve  them  for  mo- 
dels. It  is  needful  that  these  qualities 
were  natural  in  a  known  being  in  order 
to  be  imitated ;  how  can  I  imitate  a 
God  of  whom  the  goodness  and  the 
justice  do  not  resemble  mine  in  any 
thing,  or  rather  are  directly  contrary  to 
that  which  I  call  either  just  or  good? 
If  God  partakes  in  nothing  of  that 
which  forms  us,  how  can  we  even  dis- 
tantly, propose  to  ourselves  the  imitat 
ing  him,  the  resembling  him,  the  fol- 
lowing a  conduct  necessary  to  please 
him  by  conforming  ourselves  to  him? 
What  can  in  effect,be  the  motives  of  that 
worship,  of  that  homage,  and  of  that  obe- 
dience, which  we  are  told  to  render  to  the 
Supreme  Being,  if  we  do  not  establish 
them  upon  his  goodness,  upon  his  vera- 
city, upon  his  justice,  in  short,  upon 
qualities  which  we  are  able  to  under- 
stand? How  can  Ave  have  clear  ideas 
of  these  qualities  in  God  if  they  are  no 
longer  of  the  same  nature  as  our  own? 

They  will  no  doubt  tell  us,  that  there 
cannot  be  any  proportion  between  the 
creator  and  his  work  ;  that  the  clay  has 
no  right  to  demand  of  the  potter  who 
has  formed  it,  why  have  you  fashion- 
ed me  thus  ?  But  if  there  be  no  propor- 
tion between  the  workman  and  his 
work  ;  if  there  be  no  analogy  between 
them,  what  can  be  the  relations  which 
will  subsist  between  them?  If  God  is 
incorporated,  how  does  he  act  upon  bo- 
dies, or  how  can  corporeal  beings  be 


IDEAS   OF  THEOLOGY. 


199 


able  to  act  upon  him,  offend  him,  dis- 
turb his  repose,  excite  in  him  emotions 
of  anger?  If  man  is  relatively  to  God 
only  an  earthen  vase,  this  vase  owes 
neither  prayers  nor  thanks  to  the  pot- 
ter for  the  form  which  he  has  been 
pleased  to  give  it.  If  this  potter  irri- 
tates himself  against  his  vase  for  hav- 
ing formed  it  badly,  or  for  having  ren- 
dered it  incapable  of  the  uses  to  which 
he  had  destined  it,  the  potter,  if  he  is 
not  an  irrational  being,  ought  to  take 
to  himself  the  defects  which  he  finds 
in  it ;  he  certainly  has  the  power  to 
break  it,  and  the  vase  cannot  prevent 
him ;  it  will  neither  have  motives  nor 
means  to  soften  his  anger,  but  will  be 
obliged  to  submit  to  its  destiny  ;  and 
the  potter  would  be  completely  depriv- 
ed of  reason  if  he  were  to  punish  his 
vase,  rather  than,  by  forming  it  anew, 
give  it  a  figure  more  suitable  to  his  de- 
signs. 

We  see,  that  according  to  these  no- 
tions, men  have  no  more  relation  with 
God  than  stones.  But  if  God  owes 
nothing  to  men,  if  he  is  not  bound  to 
show  them  either  justice  or  goodness, 
men  cannot  possibly  owe  any  thing  to 
him.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  any 
relations  between  beings  which  are  not 
reciprocal ;  the  duties  of  men  amongst 
themselves  are  founded  upon  their  mu- 
tual wants  ;  if  God  has  not  occasion 
for  them,  they  cannot  owe  him  any 
thing,  and  men  cannot  possibly  offend 
him.  In  the  meantime,  the  authority 
of  God  can  only  be  founded  on  the 
good  which  he  does  to  men,  and  the 
duties  of  these  towards  God,  can  have 
no  other  motives  than  the  hope  of  that 
happiness  which  they  expect  from  him ; 
if  he  does  not  owe  them  this  happiness, 
all  their  relations  are  annihilated,  and 
their  duties  no  longer  exist.  Thus,  in 
whatever  manner  we  view  the  theolo- 
gical system,  it  destroys  itself.  Wil 
theology  never  feel  that  the  more  it  en- 
deavours to  exalt  its  God,  to  exagge- 
rate his  grandeur,  the  more  incompre- 
hensible it  renders  him  to  us?  That 
the  farther  it  removes  him  from  man 
or  the  more  it  debases  this  man,  the 
more  it  weakens  the  relations  which 
they  have  supposed  between  this  Goc 
and  him ;  if  the  sovereign  of  nature  i: 
an  infinite  being  and  totally  differen 
from  our  species,  and  if  man  is  only  in 
his  eyes  a  worm  or  a  speck  of  dirt,  it  is 


lear  there  cannot  be  any  moral  rela- 
tions between  two  beings  so  little  ana- 
logous to  each  other  ;  and  again  it  is 
still  more  evident  that  the  vase  which 
he  has  formed  is  not  capable  of  reason- 
ing upon  him. 

It  is,  however,  upon  the  relation  sub- 
sisting between  man  and  his  God  that 
all  worship  is  founded,  and  all  the  reli- 
gions of  the  world  have  a  despotic 
God  for  their  basis  ;  but  is  not  despot- 
ism an  unjust  and  unreasonable  power? 
Is  it  not  equally  to  undermine  his  good- 
ness, his  justice,  and  his  infinite  wis- 
dom, to  attribute  to  the  Divinity  the  ex- 
ercise of  such  a  power?  Men  in  see- 
ing the  evils  with  which  they  are  fre- 
quently assailed  in  this  world,  without 
being  able  to  guess  by  what  means  they 
have  deserved  the  divine  anger,  will 
always  be  tempted  to  believe  that  the 
master  of  nature  is  a  sultan,  who  owes 
nothing  to  his  subjects,  who  is  not 
obliged  to  render  them  any  account  of 
his  actions,  who  is  not  bound  to  con- 
form himself  to  any  law,  and  who  is 
not  himself  subjected  to  those  rules 
which  he  prescribes  for  others ;  who 
in  consequence  can  be  unjust,  who  has 
the  right  to  carry  his  vengeance  beyond 
all  bounds  ;  in  short,  the  theologians 
pretend  that  God  would  have  the  right 
of  destroying  the  universe,  and  replung- 
ing  it  into  the  chaos  from  whence  his 
wisdom  has  withdrawn  it ;  whilst  the 
same  theologians,  quote  to  us  the  order 
and  marvellous  arrangement  of  this 
world,  as  the  most  convincing  proof  of 
his  existence.* 

In  short,  theology  invests  their  God 
with  the  Incommunicable  privilege  of 
acting  contrary  to  all  the  laws  of  nature 
and  of  reason,  whilst  it  is  upon  his  rea- 
son, his  justice,  his  wisdom  and  his 
fidelity  in  the  fulfilling  his  pretended 
engagements,  that  they  are  willing  to 
establish  the  Avorship  which  we  owe 
him,  and  the  duties  of  morality.  What 
an  ocean  of  contradictions !  A  being 
who  can  do  every  thing,  and  who  owes 
nothing  to  any  one,  who,  in  his  eternal 
decrees,  can  elect  or  reject,  predesti- 
nate to  happiness  or  to  misery,  who 
has  the  right  of  making  men  the  play- 
things of  his  caprice,  and  to  afflict  them 


*"We  conceive,  at  least,"  says  Doctor  Coa- 
trill,  "that  God  is  able  to  overturn  the  universe, 
and  replunge  it  into  chaos."  See  his  Defence 
of  Religion,  Natural  and  Revealed. 


200 


CONFUSED  AND    CONTRADICTORY 


without  reason,  who  could  go  so  far  as  ] 
even  to  destroy  and  annihilate  the  uni- 1 
verse,  is  he  not  a  tyrant  or  a  demon  1  \ 
is  there  any  thing  more  frightful  than 
the  immediate  consequences  to  be 
drawn  from  these  revolting  ideas  given 
to  us  of  their  God,  by  those  who  tell 
us  to  love  him,  to  serve  him,  to  imitate 
him,  and  to  obey  his  orders  1  Would 
it  not  be  a  thousand  times  better  to  de- 
pend upon  blind  matter,  upon  a  nature 
destitute  of  intelligence,  upon  chance, 
or  upon  nothing,  upon  a  God  of  stone 
or  of  wood,  than  upon  a  God  who  is 
laying  snares  for  men,  inviting  them  to 
sin,  and  permitting  them  to  commit 
those  crimes  which  he  could  prevent, 
to  the  end  that  he  may  have  the  barba- 
rous pleasure  of  punishing  them  with- 
out measure,  without  utility  to  himself, 
without  correction  to  them,  and  with- 
out their  example  serving  to  reclaim 
others  1  A  gloomy  terrour  must  neces- 
sarily result  from  the  idea  of  such  a  be- 
ing; his  power  will  wrest  from  us 
much  servile  homage  ;  we  shall  call 
him  good  to  flatter  him  or  to  disarm 
his  malice ;  but,  without  overturning 
the  essence  of  things,  such  a  God  will 
never  be  able  to  make  himself  beloved 
by  us,  when  we  shall  reflect  that  he 
owes  us  nothing,  that  he  has  the  right 
of  being  unjust,  that  he  has  the  power 
to  punish  his  creatures  for  making  a 
bad  use  of  the  liberty  which  he  grants 
them,  or  for  not  having  had  that  grace 
which  he  has  been  pleased  to  refuse 
them. 

Thus,  in  supposing  that  God  is  not 
bound  towards  us  by  "any  rules,  theolo- 
gians visibly  sap  the  foundation  of  all 
religion.  A  theology  which  assures  us 
that  God  has  been  able  to  create  men 
for  the  purpose  of  rendering  them  eter- 
nally miserable,  shows  us  nothing  but 
an  evil  and  malicious  genius,  whose 
malice  is  inconceivable,  and  infinitely 
surpasses  the  cruelty  of  the  most  de- 
praved beings  of  our  species.  Such  is 
nevertheless  the  God  which  they  have 
the  confidence  to  propose  for  a  model 
to  the  human  species  !  Such  is  the 
Divinity  which  is  adored  even  by  those 
nations  who  boast  of  being  the  most 
enlightened  in  this  world  ! 

It  is  however  upon  the  moral  char- 
acter of  the  Divinity,  that  is  to  say, 
upon  his  goodness,  his  wisdom,  his 
equity,  and  his  love  of  order,  that  they 


pretend  to  establish  our  morals,  or  the 
science  of  those  duties  which  connect 
us  to  the  beings  of  our  species.  But 
as  his  perfections  and  his  goodness  are 
contradicted  very  frequently  and  give 
place  to  weakness,  to  injustice,  and  to 
cruelties,  we  are  obliged  to  pronounce 
him  changeable,  fickle,  capricious,  une- 
qual in  his  conduct,  and  in  contradic- 
tion with  himself,  according  to  the  va- 
rious modes  of  action  which  they  attri- 
bute to  him.  Indeed,  we  sometimes 
see  him  favourable  to,  and  sometimes 
disposed  to  injure  the  human  species ; 
sometimes  a  friend  to  reason  and  the 
happiness  of  society  ;  sometimes  he  in- 
terdicts the  use  of  reason,  he  acts  as 
the  enemy  of  all  virtue,  and  he  is  flat- 
tered with  seeing  society  disturbed. 
However,  as  we  have  seen  mortals 
crushed  by  fear,  hardly  ever  daring  to 
avow  that  their  God  was  unjust  or 
wicked,  to  persuade  themselves  that  he 
authorized  them  to  be  so,  it  was  con- 
cluded simply  that  every  thing  which 
they  did  according  to  his  pretended 
order  or  with  the  view  of  pleasing  him, 
was  always  good,  however  prejudicial 
it  might  otherwise  appear  in  the  eyes 
of  reason.  They  supposed  him  the 
master  of  creating  the  just  and  the  un- 
just, of  changing  good  into  evil,  and 
evil  into  good,  truth  into  falsehood,  and 
falsehood  into  truth:  in  short,  they  gave 
him  the  right  of  changing  the  eternal 
essence  of  things  ;  they  made  this  God 
superior  to  the  laws  of  nature,  of  rea- 
son, and  virtue;  they  believed  they 
could  never  do  wrong  in  following  his 
precepts,  although  the  most  absurd,  the 
most  contrary  to  morals,  the  most  oppo- 
site to  good  sense,  and  the  most  preju- 
dicial to  the  repose  of  society.  With 
such  principles  do  not  let  us  be  sur- 
prised at  those  horrours  which  religion 
causes  to  be  committed  on  the  earth. 
The  most  atrocious  religion  was  the 
most  consistent.* 


*  The  modern  religion  of  Europe  has  visibly 
caused  more  ravages  and  troubles  than  any 
other  known  superstition ;  it  was  in  that  re- 
spect very  consistent  with  its  principles.  They 
may  well  preach  tolerance  and  mildness  in 
the  name  of  a  despotic  God,  who  alone  has  a 
right  to  the  homage  of  the  earth,  who  is  ex- 
tremely jealous,  who  wills  that  they  should 
admit  some  doctrines,  who  punishes  cruelly 
for  erroneous  opinions,  who  demands  zeal  from 
his  adorers,  such  a  God  must  make  fanati- 
cal persecutors  of  all  consistent  men.  The 


IDEAS   OF  THEOLOGY. 


201 


In  founding  morals  upon  the  immoral 
character  of  a  God,  who  changes  his 
conduct,  man  will  never  be  able  to  as- 
certain what  conduct  he  ought  to  pur- 
sue with  regard  to  that  which  he  owes 
to  God,  or  to  others.  Nothing  then  was 
more  dangerous  than  to  persuade  him 
there  existed  a  being  superior  to  nature, 
before  whom  reason  must  remain  silent ; 
to  whom,  to  be  happy  hereafter,  he 
must  sacrifice  every  thing  here.  His 
pretended  orders,  and  his  example  must 
necessarily  be  much  stronger  than  the 
precepts  of  human  morals ;  the  adorers 
of  this  God,  cannot  then  listen  to  na- 
ture and  good  sense,  but  when  by 
chance  they  accord  with  the  caprice  of 
their  God,  in  whom  they  suppose  the 
power  of  annihilating  the  invariable 
relation  of  beings,  of  changing  reason 
into  folly,  justice  into  injustice,  and 
even  crime  into  virtue.  By  a  conse- 
quence of  these  ideas,  the  religious 
man  never  examines  the  will  and  the 
conduct  of  this  celestial  despot  accord- 
ing to  ordinary  rules ;  every  inspired 
man  that  comes  from  him,  and  those 
who  shall  pretend  they  are  charged 
with  interpreting  his  oracles,  will  al- 
ways assume  the  right  of  rendering 
him  irrational  and  criminal ;  his  first 
duty  will  always  be  to  obey  his  God 
without  murmuring. 

Such  are  the  fatal  and  necessary  con- 
sequences of  the  moral  character  which 
they  give  to  the  Divinity,  and  of  the 
opinion  which  persuades  mortals  they 
ought  to  pay  a  blind  obedience  to  the 
absolute  sovereign  whose  arbitrary  and 
fluctuating  will  regulates  all  duties. 
Those  who  first  had  the  confidence  to 
tell  men,  that  in  matters  of  religion,  it 
was  not  permitted  them  to  consult  their 
reason,  nor  the  interests  of  society, 
evidently  proposed  to  themselves  to 
make  them  the  sport  of  the  instruments 
of  their  own  peculiar  wickedness.  It 

theology  of  the  present  day  is  a  subtile  ven- 
om, calculated  to  infect  all  by  the  importance 
which  attached  to  it.  By  dint  of  metaphy- 
sics, modern  theologians  have  become  syste- 
matically absurd  and  wicked:  by  once  ad- 
mitting the  odious  ideas  which  they  gave  of 
the  Divinity,  it  was  impossible  to  make  them 
understand  that  they  ought  to  be  humane, 
equitable,  pacific,  indulgent,  or  tolerant ;  they 
pretended  and  proved  that  these  humane  and 
social  virtues,  were  not  seasonable  in  the  cause 
of  religion,  and  would  be  treason  and  crimes 
in  the  eyes  of  the  celestial  Monarch,  to  whom 
every  thing  ought  to  be  sacrificed. 
No.  VII.-26 


is  from  this  radical  errour,  then,  that 
have  sprung  all  those  extravagances, 
which  the  different  religions  have  in- 
troduced upon  the  earth  ;  that  sacred 
fury  which  has  deluged  it  in  blood; 
those  inhuman  persecutions  which  have 
so  frequently  desolated  nations ;  in 
short,  all  those  horrid  tragedies,  of 
which  the  name  of  the  Most  High  have 
the  cause  and  the  pretext.  Whenever 
they  have  been  desirous  to  render  men 
unsociable,  they  have  cried  out  that  it 
was  the  will  of  God  they  should  be  so. 
Thus  the  theologians  themselves  have 
taken  pains  to  caluminate  and  to  de- 
fame the  phantom  which  they  have 
erected  upon  the  ruins  of  human  rea- 
son, of  a  nature  well  known,  and  a  thou- 
sand times  preferable  to  a  tyrannical 
God,  whom  they  render  odious  to  every 
honest  man.  These  theologians  are  the 
true  destroyers  of  their  own  peculiar 
idol,  by  the  contradictory  qualities 
which  they  accumulate  on  him  :  it  is 
these  theologians,  as  we  shall  yet  prove 
in  the  sequel,  who  render  morals  uncer- 
tain and  fluctuating,  by  founding  them 
upon  a  changeable  and  capricious  God, 
much  more  frequently  unjust  and  cruel, 
than  good :  it  is  they  who  overturn 
and  annihilate  him,  by  commanding 
crime,  carnage,  and  barbarity,  in  the 
name  of  the  sovereign  of  the  universe, 
and  who  interdict  us  the  use  of  reason, 
which  alone  ought  to  regulate  all  our 
actions  and  ideas. 

However,  admitting  for  a  moment 
that  God  possesses  all  the  human  vir 
tues  in  an  infinite  degree  of  perfection, 
we  shall  presently  le  obliged  to  ac- 
knowledge that  he  cannot  connect  them 
with  those  metaphysical,  theological, 
and  negative  attributes,  of  which  we 
have  already  spoken.  If  God  is  a 
spirit,  how  can  he  act  like  man,  who  is 
a  corporeal  being  1  A  pure  spirit  sees 
nothing ;  it  neither  hears  our  prayers 
nor  our  cries,  it  cannot  be  conceived  to 
have  compassion  for  our  miseries,  be- 
ing destitute  of  those  organs  by  which 
the  sentiments  of  pity  can  be  excited 
in  us.  He  is  not  immutable,  if  his  dis- 
position can  change  :  he  is  not  infinite, 
if  the  totality  of  nature,  without  being 
him,  can  exist  conjointly  with  him  ;  he 
is  not  omnipotent,  if  he  permits,  or  if 
he  does  not  prevent  disorder  in  the 
world :  he  is  not  omnipresent,  if  he  is 
not  in  the  man  who  sins,  or  if  he  leaves 


202 


CONFUSED    AND    CONTRADICTORY 


at  the  moment  In  which  he  commits 
the  sin.  Thus,  in  whatever  manner 
we  consider  this  God,  the  human  quali- 
ties which  they  assign  him,  necessarily 
destroy  each  other;  and  these  same 
qualities  cannot,  in  any  possible  man- 
ner, combine  themselves  with  the  su- 
pernatural attributes  given  him  by 
theology. 

With  respect  to  the  pretended  reve- 
lation of  the  will  of  God,  far  from  be- 
ing a  proof  of  his  goodness,  or  of  his 
commiseration  for  men,  it  would  only 
be  a  proof  of  his  malice.  Indeed,  all 
revelation  supposes  the  Divinity  guilty 
of  leaving  the  human  species,  during  a 
considerable  time,  unacquainted  with 
truths  the  most  important  to  their  hap- 
piness. This  revelation,  made  to  a 
small  number  of  chosen  men,  would 
moreover  show  a  partiality  in  this  being, 
an  unjust  predilection  but  little  compa- 
tible with  the  goodness  of  the  common 
Father  of  the  human  race.  This  reve- 
lation destroys  also  the  divine  immu- 
tability, since,  by  it,  God  would  have 
permitted  at  one  time,  that  men  should 
be  ignorant  of  his  will,  and  at  another 
time,  that  they  should  be  instructed  in 
it.  This  granted,  all  revelation  is  con- 
trary to  the  notions  which  they  give  us 
of  the  justice  or  of  the  goodness  of  a 
God,  who  they  tell  us  is  immutable, 
and  who,  without  having  occasion  to 
reveal  himself,  or  to  make  himself 
known  to  them  by  miracles,  could  easily 
instruct  and  convince  men,  and  inspire 
them  with  those  ideas,  which  he  de- 
sires ;  in  short,  dispose  of  their  minds 
and  of  their  hearts.  What  if  we  should 
examine  in  detail  all  those  pretended 
revelations,  which  they  assure  us  have 
been  made  to  mortals  1  We  shall  see 
that  this  God  only  retails  fables  unwor- 
thy of  a  wise  being ;  acts  in  them,  in 
a  manner  contrary  to  the  natural  no- 
tions of  equity ;'  announces  enigmas 
and  oracles  impossible  to  be  compre- 
hended; paints  himself  under  traits  in- 
compatible with  his  infinite  perfections; 
exacts  puerilities  which  degrade  him 
in  the  eyes  of  reason ;  deranges  the 
order  which  he  has  established  in  na- 
ture, to  convince  creatures,  whom  he 
will  never  cause  to  adopt  those  ideas, 
those  sentiments,  and  that  conduct, 
with  which  he  would  inspire  them.  In 
short,  we  shall  find,  that  God  has  never 
manifested  himself,  but  to  announce 


inexplicable  mysteries,  unintelligible 
doctrines,  ridiculous  practices  i  to  tlwow 
the  human  mind  into  fear,  distrust,  per- 
plexity, and  above  all,  to  furnish  a 
never-failing  source  of  dispute  to  mor- 
tals.* 

We  see,  then,  that  the  ideas  which 
theology  gives  us  of  the  Divinity  will 
always  be  confused  and  incompatible, 
and  will  necessarily  disturb  the  repose 
of  human  nature.  These  obscure  no- 
tions, these  vague  speculations,  would 
be  of  great  indifference,  if  men  did  not 
regard  their  reveries  oa  this  unknown 
being,  upon  whom  they  believe  they 
depend,  as  important,  and  if  they  did 
not  draw  from  them  conclusions  perni- 
cious to  themselves.  As  they  never 
will  have  a  common  and  fixed  standard, 
whereby  to  form  a  judgment  on  this 
being,  to  whom  various  and  diversely 
modified  imaginations  have  given  birth, 
they  will  never  be  able  either  to-under- 
stand  each  other,  or  to  be  in  accord  with 
each  other  upon  those  ideas  they  shall 
form  to  themselves  of  him.  From 
hence,  that  necessary  diversity  of  reli- 
gious opinions,  which,  in  all  ages,  has 
given  rise  to  themost  irrational  disputes 
which  they  always  look  upon  as  very 
essential,  and  which  has  consequently 
always  interested  the  tranquillity  of  na- 
tions. A  man  with  a  heated  imagina- 
tion, will  not  accommodate  himself  to 
the  God  of  a  phlegmatic  and  tranquil 
man ;  and  infirm,  bilious,  discontented 
man,  will  never  see  this  God  in  the 
same  point  of  view  as  he-who  enjoys 
a  constitution  more  sound,  whence  com- 
monly results  gayety,  contentment,  and 
peace.  An  equitable,  kind,  compas- 
sionate, tender-hearted  man,  will  not 
delineate  to  himself  the  same  portrait 
of  his  God,  as  the  man  who  is  of  a 


*  It  is  evident  that  all  revelation,  which  is 
not  clear,  or  which  teaches  mysteries,  cannot 
be  the  work  of  a  wise  and  intelligent  being : 
as  soon  as  he  speaks,  we  ought  to  presume^ 
it  is  for  the  purpose  of  being  understood  by 
those  to  whom  he  manifests  himself.  To 
speak  so  as  not  to  be  understood,  only  shows 
folly  or  want  of  good  faith.  ^It  is,  then,  very 
clear,  that  all  things  which  the  priesthood 
have  called  mysteries,  are  inventions,  made 
to  throw  a  thick  veil  over  their  own  peculiar 
contradictions,  and  their  own  peculiar  ignor- 
ance of  the  Divinity.  But  they  think  to 
solve  all  difficulties  by  saying  it  is  a  mystery  ; 
taking  care,  however,  that  men  should  know 
nothing  of  that  pretended  science,  of  which 
they  have  made  themselves  the  depositaries. 


IDEAS   OP  THEOLOGY. 


t03 


harsh,  unjust,  inflexible,  wicked  char- 
acter. Each  individual  will  modify  his 
God  after  his  own  peculiar  manner  of 
existing,  after  his  own  mode  of  think- 
ing, according  to  his  particular  mode 
of  feeling.  A  wise,  honest,  rational 
man  will  never  figure  to  himself  that  a 
God  can  be  unjust  and  cruel. 

Nevertheless,  as  fear  necessarily  pre- 
sided at  the  formation  of  those  Gods 
man  set  up  for  the  object  of  his  wor- 
ship; as  the  ideas  of  the  Divinity  was 
always  associated  with  that  of  terrour ; 
as  the  recollection  of  sufferings,  which 
he  attributed  to  God,  often  made  him 
tremble ;  frequently  awakened  in  his 
mind  the  most  afflicting  reminiscence ; 
sometimes  filled  him  with  inquietude, 
sometimes  inflamed  his  imagination, 
sometimes  overwhelmed  him  with  dis- 
may. The  experience  of  all  ages  proves, 
that  this  vague  name  became  the  most 
important  of  all  considerations — was 
the  affair  which  most  seriously  occu- 
pied the  human  race:  that  it  every 
where  spread  consternation — produced 
the  most  frightful  ravages,  by  the  deli- 
rious inebriation  resulting  from  the 
opinions  with  which  it  intoxicated  the 
mind.  Indeed,  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  prevent  habitual  fear,  which  of  all 
human  passions  is  the  most  incommo- 
dious, from  becoming  a  dangerous  lea- 
ven, which,  in  the  long  run,  will  sour, 
exasperate,  and  give  malignancy  to  the 
most  moderate  temperament. 

If  a  misanthrope,  in  hatred  of  his 
race,  had  formed  the  project  of  throw- 
ing man  into  the  greatest  perplexity — 
if  a  tyrant,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  un- 
ruly desire  to  punish,  had  sought  out 
the  most  efficacious  means;  could 
either  the  one  or  the  other  have  ima- 
gined that  which  was  so  well  calculat- 
ed to  gratify  their  revenge,  as  thus  to 
occupy  him  unceasingly  with  being  not 
only  unknown  to  him,  but  which  can 
never  be  known,  which,  notwithstand- 
ing, they  should  be  obliged  to  contem- 
plate as  the  centre  of  all  their  thoughts 
— as  the  only  model  of  their  conduct — 
as  the  end  of  all  their  actions — as  the 
subject  of  all  their  research  —  as  a 
thing  of  more  importance  to  them  than 
life  itself,  upon  which  all  their  present 
felicity,  all  their  future  happiness,  must 
necessarily  depend  1  If  man  was  sub- 
jected to  an  absolute  monarch,to  a  sultan 
who  should  keep  himself  secluded  from  ' 


his  subjects ;  who  followed  no  rule  but 
his  own  desires ;  who  did  not  feel  him- 
self bound  by  any  duty;  who  could 
for  ever  punish  the  offences  committed 
against  him  ;  whose  fury  it  was  easy 
to  provoke ;  who  was  irritated  even  by 
the  ideas,  the  thoughts  of  his  subjects ; 
whose  displeasure  might  be  incurred 
without  even  their  own  knowledge ; 
the  name  of  such  a  sovereign  would 
assuredly  be  sufficient  to  carry  trouble, 
to  spread  terrour,  to  diffuse  consterna- 
tion into  the  very  souls  of  those  who 
should  hear  it  pronounced ;  his  idea 
would  haunt  them  every  where — would 
unceasingly  afflict  them — would  plunge 
them  into  despair.  What  tortures  would 
not  their  mind  endure  to  discover  this 
formidable  being,  to  ascertain  the  secret 
of  pleasing  him  !  What  labour  would 
not  their  imagination  bestow,  to  disco- 
ver what  mode  of  conduct  might  be 
able  to  disarm  his  anger  !  What  fears 
would  assail  them,  lest  they  might  not 
have  justly  hit  upon  the  means  of  as- 
suaging his  wrath !  What  disputes 
would  they  not  enter  into  upon  the  na- 
ture, the  qualities  of  a  ruler,  equally 
unknown  to  them  all !  What  a  variety 
of  means  would  not  be  adopted,  to  find 
favour  in  his  eyes ;  to  avert  his  chas- 
tisement ! 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  effects  the 
name  of  God  has  produced  upon  the 
earth.  Man  has  always  been  panic- 
struck  at  it,  because  he  never  was  able 
to  form  any  correct  opinion,  any  fixed 
ideas  upon  the  subject ;  because  every 
thing  conspired  either  to  give  his  ideas 
a  fallacious  turn,  or  else  to  keep  his 
mind  in  the  most  profound  ignorance; 
when  he  was  willing  to  set  himself 
right,  when  he  was  sedulous  to  exam- 
ine the  path  which  conducted  to  his 
felicity,  when  he  was  desirous  of  pro- 
bing opinions  so  consequential  to  his 
peace,  involving  so  much  mystery,  yet 
combining  both  his  hopes  and  his  fears, 
he  was  forbidden  to  employ  the  only 
proper  method — his  reason,  guided  by 
his  experience ;  he  was  assured  this 
would  be  an  offence  the  most  indelible. 
If  he  asked,  wherefore  his  reason  had 
been  given  him,  since  he  was  not  to 
use  it  in  matters  of  such  high  behest  ? 
he  was  answered,  those  were  mysteries 
of  which  none  but  the  initiated  could 
be  informed  ;  that  it  sufficed  for  him  to 
know,  that  the  reason  which  he  seemed 


204 


CONFUSED   AND   CONTRADICTORY 


so  highly  to  prize,  which  he  held  in  so 
much  esteem,  was  his  most  dangerous 
enemy — his  most  inveterate,  most  de- 
termined foe.  He  is  told  that  he  must 
believe  in  God,  not  question  the  mission 
of  the  priest? ;  in  short,  that  he  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  laws  he  impos- 
ed, but  to  obey  them :  when  he  then 
required  that  these  laws  might  at  least 
be  made  comprehensible  to  him ;  that 
he  might  be  placed  in  a  capacity  to  un- 
derstand them;  the  old  answer  was 
returned,  that  they  were  mysteries; 
he  must  not  inquire  into  them.  Thus 
he  had  nothing  steady ;  nothing  per- 
manent, whereby  to  guide  his  steps; 
like  a  blind  man  left  to  himself  in  the 
streets,  he  was  obliged  to  grope  his 
way  at  the  peril  of  his  existence.  This 
will  serve  to  show  the  urgent  necessity 
there  is  for  truth  to  throw  its  radiant  lus- 
tre on  systems  big  with  so  much  import- 
ance ;  that  are  so  calculated  to  corrobo- 
rate the  animosities,  to  confirm  the  bit- 
terness of  soul,  between  those  whom 
nature  intended  should  always  act  as 
brothers. 

By  the  magical  charms  with  which 
this  God  was  surrounded,  the  human 
species  has  remained  either  as  if  it 
was  benumbed,  in  a  state  of  stupid 
apathy,  or  else  it  has  become  furious 
with  fanaticism :  sometimes,  despond- 
ing with  fear,  man  cringed  like  a  slave 
who  bends  under  the  scourge  of  an  in- 
exorable master,  always  ready  to  strike 
him;  he  trembled  under  a  yoke  made 
too  ponderous  for  his  strength :  he  lived 
in  continual  dread  of  a  vengeance  he 
was  unceasingly  striving  to  appease, 
without  ever  knowing  when  he  had 
succeeded :  as  he  was  always  bathed 
in  tears,  continually  enveloped  in  mis- 
ery— as  he  was  never  permitted  to  lose 
sight  of  his  fears — as  he  was  continu- 
ally exhorted  to  nourish  his  alarm,  he 
could  neither  labour  for  his  own  happi- 
ness nor  contribute  to  that  of  others ; 
nothing  could  exhilarate  him  :  he  be- 
came the  enemy  of  himself,  the  perse- 
cutor of  his  fellow-creatures,  because 
his  felicity  here  below  was  interdicted; 
he  passed  his  time  in  heaving  the  most 
bitter  sighs  ;  his  reason  being  forbidden 
him,  he  fell  into  either  a  state  of  in- 
fancy or  delirium,  which  submitted 
him  to  authority ;  he  was  destined  to 
this  servitude  from  the  hour  he  quitted 
his  mother's  womb,  until  that  in  which 


he  was  returned  to  his  kindred  dust ; 
tyrannical  opinion  bound  him  fast  in 
her  massive  fetters ;  a  prey  to  the  ter- 
rours  with  which  he  was  inspired,  he 
appeared  to  have  come  upon  the  earth 
for  no  other  purpose  than  to  dream — 
with  no  other  desire- than  to  groan — 
with  no  other  motives  than  to  sigh ; 
his  only  view  seemed  to  be  to  injure 
himself;  to  deprive  himself  of  every 
rational  pleasure  ;  to  embitter  his  own 
existence;  to  disturb  the  felicity  of 
others.  Thus,  abject,  slothful,  irra- 
tional, he  frequently  became  wicked, 
under  the  idea  of  doing  honour  to  his 
God ;  because  they  instilled  into  his 
mind  that  it  was  his  duty  to  avenge  his 
cause,  to  sustain  his  honour,  to  propa- 
gate his  worship. 

Mortals  were  prostrate  from  race  to 
race,  before  vain  idols  to  which  fear 
had  given  birth  in  the  bosom  of  igno- 
rance, during  the  calamities  of  the 
earth ;  they  tremblingly  adored  phan- 
toms which  credulity  had  placed  in  the 
recesses  of  their  own  brain,  where  they 
found  a  sanctuary  which  time  only 
served  to  strengthen ;  nothing  could 
undeceive  them ;  nothing  was  compe- 
tent to  make  them  feel,  it  was  them- 
selves they  adored — that  they  bent  the 
knee  before  their  own  work — that  they 
terrified  themselws  with  the  extrava- 
gant pictures  they  had  themselves  de- 
lineated :  they  obstinately  persisted  in 
prostrating  themselves,  in  perplexing 
themselves,  in  trembling ;  they  even 
made  a  crime  of  endeavouring  to  dis- 
sipate their  fears ;  they  mistook  the 
production  of  their  own  folly ;  their 
conduct  resembled  that  of  children, 
who  having  disfigured  their  own  fea- 
tures, become  afraid  of  themselves 
when  a  mirror  reflects  the  extravagance 
they  have  committed.  These  notions 
so  afflicting  for  themselves,  so  grievous 
to  others,  have  their  epoch  in  the  ca- 
lamitous idea  of  a  God;  they  will  con- 
tinue, perhaps  augment,  until  their 
mind,  enlightened  by  discarded  reason, 
illumined  by  truth,  shall  attach  no 
more  importance  to  this  unintelligible 
word  ;  until  man,  bursting  the  chains 
of  superstition,  taking  a  rational  view 
of  that  which  surrounds  him,  shall  no 
longer  refuse  to  contemplate  nature 
under  her  true  character ;  shall  no  lon- 
ger persist  in  refusing  to  acknowledge 
she  contains  within  herself  the  cause 


IDEAS  OP  THEOLOGY. 


•205 


of  that  wonderful  phenomena  which 
strikes  on  the  dazzled  optics  of  man : 
until  thoroughly  persuaded  of  the  weak- 
ness of  their  claims  to  the  homage  of 
mankind,  he  shall  make  one  simulta- 
neous, mighty  effort,  and  overthrow  the 
altars  of  God  and  his  priests. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Examination  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence 
of  the  Divinity^  as  given  by  Clarke. 

THE  unanimity  of  man  in  acknow- 
ledging the  Divinity,  is  commonly 
looked  upon  as  the  strongest  proof  of 
his  existence.  There  is  not,  it  is  said, 
any  people  on  the  earth  who  have  not 
some  ideas,  whether  true  or  false,  of 
an  all-powerful  agent  who  governs  the 
world.  The  rudest  savages,  as  well 
as  the  most  polished  nations,  are  equal- 
ly obliged  to  recur  by  thought  to  the 
first  cause  of  every  thing  that  exists  ; 
thus  it  is  affirmed,  the  cry  of  nature 
herself  ought  to  convince  us  of  the 
existence  of  a  God,  of  which  she  has 
taken  pains  to  engrave  the  notion  in 
the  minds  of  men :  they  therefore  con- 
clude, that  the  idea  of  God  is  innate. 
But  if  this  existence  rests  upon  no  bet- 
ter foundations  than  the  unanimity  of 
man  on  this  subject,  it  is  not  placed 
upon  so  solid  a  rock  as  those  who  make 
this  asseveration  may  imagine :  the 
fact  is,  man  is  not  generally  agreed  up- 
on this  point;  if  he  was,  superstition 
could  have  no  existence ;  the  idea  of 
God  cannot  be  innate,  because,  inde- 
pendent of  the  proofs  offered  on  every 
side  of  the  almost  impossibility  of  in- 
nate ideas,  one  simple  fact  will  set 
such  an  opinion  for  ever  at  rest,  except 
with  those  who  are  obstinately  deter- 
mined not  to  be  convinced  by  even 
their  own  arguments :  if  this  idea  was 
innate,  it  must  be  every  where  the 
same ;  seeing  that  that  which  is  ante- 
cedent to  man's  being,  cannot  have 
experienced  the  modifications  of  his 
existence,  which  are  posterior.  Even 
if  it  were  waived,  that  the  same  idea 
should  be  expected  from  all  mankind, 
but  that  only  every  nation  should  have 
their  ideas  alike  on  this  subject,  expe- 
rience will  not  warrant  the  assertion, 
since  nothing  can  be  better  established 
than  that  the  idea  is  not  uniform  even  in 
the  same  town ;  now  this  would  be  an 


insuperable  quality  in  an  innate  idea. 
It  not  unfrequently  happens,  that  in  the 
endeavour  to  prove  too  much,  that 
which  stood  firm  before  the  attempt  is 
weakened;  thus  a  bad  advocate  fre- 
quently injures  a  good  cause,  although 
he  may  not  be  able  to  overturn  the 
rights  on  which  it  is  rested.  It  would, 
therefore,  perhaps,  come  nearer  to  the 
point  if  it  was  said,  that  the  natural 
curiosity  of  mankind  has  in  all  ages, 
and  in  all  nations,  led  him  to  seek  after 
the  primary  cause  of  the  phenomena 
he  beholds  ;  that  owing  to  the"  varia- 
tions of  his  climate,  to  the  difference 
of  his  organization,  the  greater  or  less 
calamity  he  has  experienced,  the  vari- 
ety of  his  intellectual  faculties,  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  he  has  been 
placed,  man  has  had  the  most  opposite, 
contradictory,  extravagant  notions  of 
this  Divinity. 

If  disengaged  from  prejudice,  we  an- 
alyze this  proof,  we  shall  see  that  the 
universal  consent  of  man,  so  diffused 
over  the  earth,  actually  proves  little 
more  than  that  he  has  been  in  all  coun- 
tries exposed  to  frightful  revolutions, 
experienced  disasters,  been  sensible  to 
sorrows  of  which  he  has  mistaken  the 
physical  causes ;  that  those  events  to 
which  he  has  been  either  the  victim  or 
the  witness,  have  called  forth  his  ad- 
miration or  excited  his  fear ;  that  for 
want  of  being  acquainted  with  the 
powers  of  nature,  for  want  of  under- 
standing her  laws,  for  want  of  compre- 
hending her  infinite  resources,  for  want 
of  knowing  the  effects  she  must  neces- 
sarily produce  under  given  circum- 
stances, he  has  believed  these  pheno- 
mena were  due  to  some  secret  agent 
of  which  he  has  had  vague  ideas — 
to  beings  whom  he  has  supposed  con- 
ducted themselves  after  his  own  man- 
ner ;  who  were  operated  upon  by  simi- 
lar motives  with  himself. 

The  consent  then  of  man  in  acknow- 
ledging a  God,  proves  nothing,  except 
that  in  the  bosom  of  ignorance  he  has 
either  admired  the  phenomena  of  na- 
ture, or  trembled  under  their  influence  ; 
that  his  imagination  was  disturbed  by 
what  he  beheld  or  suffered ;  that  he 
has  sought  in  vain  to  relieve  his  per- 
plexity, upon  the  unknown  cause  of  the 
phenomena  he  'witnessed,  which  fre- 
quently obliged  him  to  quake  with  ter- 
rour:  the  imagination  of  the  human 


206 


EXAMINATION  OF  THE  PROOFS 


race  has  laoourcd  variously  upon  these 
causes,  which  have  almost  always  been 
incomprehensible  to  him ;  although 
every  thing  confessed  his  ignorance, 
his  inability  to  define  this  cause,  yet 
he  maintained  that  he  was  assured  of 
its  existence  ;  when  pressed,  he  spoke 
of  a  spirit,  (a  word  to  which  it  was 
impossible  to  attach  any  determinate 
idea,)  which  taught  nothing  but  the 
sloth,  which  evidenced  nothing  but  the 
stupidity  of  those  who  pronounced  it. 

It  ought,  however,  not  to  excite  any 
surprise  that  man  is  incapable  of  form- 
ing any  substantive  ideas,  save  of  those 
things  which  act,  or  which  have  here- 
tofore acted  upon  his  senses ;  it  is  very 
evident  that  the  only  objects  compe- 
tent to  move  his  organs  are  material — 
that  none  but  physical  beings  can  fur- 
nish him  with  ideas — a  truth  which 
has  been  rendered  sufficiently  clear  in 
the  commencement  of  this  work,  not 
to  need  any  further  proof.  It  will  suf- 
fice therefore  to  say,  that  the  idea  of 
God  is  not  an  innate,  but  an  acquired 
notion ;  that  it  is  the  very  nature  of 
this  notion  to  vary  from  age  to  age ; 
to  differ  in  one  country  from  another  ; 
to  be  viewed  variously  by  individuals. 
What  do  I  say  ?  It  is,  in  fact,  an  idea 
hardly  ever  constant  in  the  same  mor- 
tal. This  diversity,  this  fluctuation, 
this  change,  stamps  it  with  the  true 
character  of  an  acquired  opinion.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  strongest  proof  that 
can  be  adduced  that  these  ideas  are 
founded  in  errour,  is,  that  man  by  de- 
grees has  arrived  at  perfectioning  all 
the  sciences  which  have  any  known 
objects  for  their  basis,  whilst  the  sci- 
ence of  deism  has  not  advanced ;  it 
is  almost  every  where  at  the  same 
point ;  men  seem  equally  undecided 
on  this  subject ;  those  who  have  most 
occupied  themselves  with  it,  have  ef- 
fected but  little;  they  seem,  indeed, 
rather  to  have  rendered  the  primitive 
ideas  man  formed  to  himself  on  this 
head  more  obscure. 

As  soon  as  it  is  asked  of  man,  what 
is  the  God  before  whom  he  prostrates 
himself,  forthwith  his  sentiments  are 
divided.  In  order  that  his  opinions 
should  be  in  accord,  it  would  be  requi- 
site that  uniform  ideas,  analogous  sen- 
sations, unvaried  perceptions,  should 
every  where  have  given  birth  to  his 
notions  upon  this  subject:  but  this 


would  suppose  organs  perfectly  simi- 
lar, modified  by  sensations  which  have 
a  perfect  affinity :  this  is  what  could 
not  happen  :  because  man,  essentially 
different  by  his  temperament,  who  is 
found  under  circumstances  completely 
dissimilar,  must  necessarily  have  a 
great  diversity  of  ideas  upon  objects 
which  each  individual  contemplates  so 
variously.  Agreed  in  some  general 
points,  each  made  himself  a  God  after 
his  own  manner ;  he  feared  him,  he 
served  him,  after  his  own  mode.  Thus 
the  God  of  one  man,  or  of  one  nation, 
was  hardly  ever  that  of  another  man, 
or  of  another  nation.  The  God  of  a 
savage,  unpolished  people,  is  com- 
monly some  material  object,  upon 
which  the  mind  has  exercised  itself 
but  little  ;  this  God  appears  very  ridicu- 
lous in  the  eyes  of  a  more  polished 
community,  whose  minds  have  labour- 
ed more  intensely  upon  the  subject.  A 
spiritual  God,  whose  adorers  despise 
the  worship  paid  by  the  savage  to  a 
coarse,  material  object,  is  the  subtile 
production  of  the  brain  of  thinkers, 
who,  lolling  in  the  lap  of  polished  so- 
ciety quite  at  their  leisure,  have  deeply 
meditated,  have  long  occupied  them- 
selves with  the  subject.  The  theolo- 
gical God,  although  incomprehensible, 
is  the  last  effort  of  the  human  imagi- 
nation ;  it  is  to  the  God  of  the  sarage, 
what  an  inhabitant  of  the  city  of  Sy- 
baris,  where  effeminacy  and  luxury 
reigned,  where  pomp  and  pageantry 
had  reached  their  climax,  clothed  with 
a  curiously  embroidered  purple  habit 
of  silk,  was  to  a  man  either  quite  na- 
ked, or  simply  covered  with  the  skin 
of  a  beast,  perhaps  newly  slain.  It  is 
only  in  civilized  societies,  that  leisure 
affords  the  opportunity  of  dreaming — 
that  ease  procures  the  facility  of  reason- 
ing; in  these  associations,  idle  specula- 
tors meditate,  dispute,  form  metaphys- 
ics: the  faculty  of  thought  is  almost  void 
in  the  savage,  who  is  occupied  either 
with  hunting,  with  fishing,  or  with  the 
means  of  procuring  a  very  precarious 
subsistence  by  dint  of  almost  incessant 
labour.  The  generality  of  men,  even 
among  us,  have  not  more  elevated  no- 
tions of  the  Divinity,  have  not  analyzed 
him  more  than  the  savage.  A  spirit- 
ual, immaterial  God,  is  formed  only 
to  occupy  the  leisure  of  some  subtile 
men,  who  have  no  occasion  to  labour 


OP  THE   EXISTENCE  OF  GOD. 


207 


for  a  subsistence.  Theology,  although 
a  science  so  much  vaunted,  considered 
so  important  to  the  interests  of  man, 
is  only  useful  to  those  who  live  at  the 
expense  of  others;  or  of  those  who 
arrogate  to  themselves  the  privilege  of 
thinking  for  all  those  who  labour. — 
This  futile  science  becomes,  in  some 
polished  societies,  who  are  not  on  that 
account  more  enlightened,  a  branch  of 
commerce  extremely  advantageous  to 
its  professors,  but  equally  unprofitable 
to  the  citizens ;  above  all  when  these 
have  the  folly  to  take  a  very  decided 
interest  in  their  unintelligible  opin- 
ions. 

What  an  infinite  distance  between 
an  unformed  stone,  an  animal,  a  star, 
a  statue,  and  the  abstracted  Deity, 
which  theology  has  clothed  with  attri- 
butes under  which  it  loses  sight  of 
him  itself!  The  savage  without  doubt 
deceives  himself  in  the  object  to  which 
he  addresses  his  vows ;  like  a  child  he 
is  smitten  with  the  first  object  that 
strikes  his  sight — that  operates  upon 
him  in  a  lively  manner;  like  the  in- 
fant, his  fears  are  alarmed  by  that  from 
which  he  conceives  he  has  either  re- 
ceived an  injury  or  suffered  disgrace ; 
still  his  ideas  are  fixed  by  a  substan- 
tive being,  by  an  object  which  he  can 
examine  by  his  senses.  The  Lapland- 
er who  adores  a  rock — the  negro  who 
prostrates  himself  before  a  monstrous 
serpent,  at  least  see  the  objects  they 
adore.  The  idolater  falls  upon  his 
knees  before  a  statue,  in  which  he  be- 
lieves there  resides  some  concealed 
virtue,  some  powerful  quality,  which 
he  judges  may  be  either  useful  or  pre- 
judicial to  himself;  but  that  subtile 
reasoner,  called  a  theologian,  who  in 
consequence  of  his  unintelligible  sci- 
ence, believes  he  has  a  right  to  laugh 
at  the  savage,  to  deride  the  Laplander, 
to  scoff  at  the  negro,  to  ridicule  the  idol- 
ater, does  not  perceive  that  he  himself 
is  prostrate  before  a  being  of  his  own 
imagination,  of  which  it  is  impossible 
he  should  form  to  himself  any  correct 
idea,  unless,  like  the  savage,  he  re-en- 
ters into  visible  nature,  to  clothe  him 
with  qualities  capable  of  being  brought 
within  the  range  of  his  comprehen- 
sion." 

Thus  the  notions  on  the  Divinity, 
which  obtain  credit  even  at  the  present 
day,  are  nothing  more  than  a  general 


terrour  diversely  acquired,  variously 
modified  in  the  mind  of  nations,  which 
do  not  tend  to  prove  any  thing,  save 
that  they  have  received  them  from  their 
trembling,  ignorant  ancestors.  These 
Gods  have  been  successively  altered, 
decorated,  subtilized,  by  those  thinkers, 
those  legislators,  those  priests,  who 
have  meditated  deeply  upon  them ; 
who  have  prescribed  systems  of  wor- 
ship to  the  uninformed;  who  have 
availed  themselves  of  their  existing 
prejudices,  to  submit  them  to  their 
yoke ;  who  have  obtained  a  dominion 
over  their  minds  by  seizing  on  their 
credulity — by  making  them  participate 
in  their  errours — 'by  working  on  their 
fears;  these  dispositions  will  always 
be  a  necessary  consequence  of  man's 
ignorance,  when  steeped  in  the  sorrows 
of  his  heart. 

If  it  be  true,  as  asserted,  that  the 
earth  has  never  witnessed  any  nation 
so  unsociable,  so  savage,  to  be  without 
some  form  of  religious  worship — who 
did  not  adore  some  God — but  little  will 
result  from  it  respecting  its  reality. — 
The  word  God,  will  rarely  be  found  to 
designate  more  than  the  unknown  cause 
of  those  effects  which  man  has  either 
admired  or  dreaded.  Thus,  this  notion 
so  generally  diffused,  upon  which  so 
much  stress  is  laid,  will  prove  little 
more  than  that  man  in  all  generations 
has  been  ignorant  of  natural  causes — 
that  he  has  been  incompetent,  from 
some  cause  or  other,  to  account  for 
those  phenomena  which  either  excited 
his  surprise  or  roused  his  fears.  If  at 
the  present  day  a  people  cannot  be 
found  destitute  of  some  kind  of  wor- 
ship, entirely  without  superstition,  who 
do  not  acknowledge  a  God,  who  have 
not  adopted  a  theology  more  or  less 
subtile,  it  is  because  the  uninformed 
ancestors  of  these  people  have  all  en- 
dured misfortunes — have  been  alarmed 
by  terrifying  effects,  which  they  have 
attributed  to  unknown  causes — have 
beheld  strange  sights,  which  they  have 
ascribed  to  powerful  agents,  whose 
existence  they  could  not  fathom ;  the 
details  of  which,  together  with  their 
own  bewildered  notions,  they  have 
handed  down  to  their  posterity  who 
have  not  given  them  any  kind  of  ex- 
amination. 

Besides,  the  universality  of  an  opin- 
ion by  no  means  proves  its  truth.  Do 


209 


EXAMINATION  OF  THE  PROOFS 


we  not  see  a  great  number  of  ignorant 
prejudices,  a  multitude  of  barbarous 
errours,  even  at  the  present  day,  receive 
the  almost  universal  sanction  of  the 
human  race?  Are  not  all  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  earth  imbued  with  the. 
idea  of  magic — in  the  habit  of  acknow- 
ledging occult  powers — given  to  divina- 
tion— believers  in  enchantment — the 
slaves  to  omens — supporters  of  witch- 
craft—thoroughly persuaded  of  the  ex- 
istence of  ghosts  ?  If  some  of  the  most 
enlightened  persons  are  cured  of  these 
follies,  they  still  find  very  zealous  par- 
tisans in  the  greater  number  of  man- 
kind, who  accredit  them  with  the  firm- 
est confidence.  It  would  not,  however, 
be  concluded  by  men  of  sound  sense, 
that  therefore  these  chimeras  actually 
have  existence,  although  sanctioned 
with  the  credence  of  the  multitude. 
Before  Copernicus,  there  was  no  one 
who  did  not  believe  that  the  earth  was 
stationary,  that  the  sun  described  his 
annual  revolution  round  it.  Was,  how- 
ever, this  universal  consent  of  man, 
which  endured  for  so  many  thousand 
years,  less  an  errour  on  that  account?* 
Each  man  has  his  God :  but  do  all 
these  Gods  exist  1  In  reply  it  will  be 
said  each  man  has  his  ideas  of  the 
sun;  do  all  these  suns  exist?  However 
narrow  may  be  the  pass  by  which  su- 
perstition imagines  it  has  thus  guarded 
its  favourite  hypothesis,  nothing  will 
perhaps  be  more  easy  than  the  answer : 
the  existence  of  the  sun  is  a  fact  verifi- 


*  Yet  to  have  doubted  the  truth  of  such  a 
generally-diffused  opinion,  one  that  had  re- 
ceived the  sanction  of  so  many  learned  men — 
that  was  clothed  with  the  sacred  vestments 
of  so  many  ages  of  credulity— that  had  been 
adopted  by  Moses,  acknowledged  by  Solo- 
mon, accredited  by  the  Persian  magi — that 
Elijah  had  not  refuted — that  obtained  the  fiat 
of  the  most  respectable  universities,  the  most 
enlightened  legislators,  the  wisest  kings,  the 
most  eloquent  ministers :  in  short,  a  principle 
that  embraced  all  the  stability  that  could  be 
derived  from  the  universal  consent  of  all 
ranks :  to  have  doubted  of  this,  would  at  one 
period  been  held  as  the  highest  degree  of  pro- 
fanation, as  the  most  presumptuous  scepti- 
cism, as  an  impious  blasphemy,  that  would 
have  threatened  the  very  existence  of  that 
unhappy  country  from  whose  unfortunate 
bosom  such  a  venomous,  sacrilegious  mortal 
could  have  arisen.  It  is  well,  known  what 
opinion  was  entertained  of  0alileo  for  main- 
taining the  existence  of  the  antipodes.  Pope 
Gregory  excommunicated  as  atheists  all  those 
who  gave  it  credit. 


ed  by  the  daily  use  of  the  senses ;  all 
the  world  see  the  sun ;  no  one  hath 
ever  seen  God ;  nearly  all  mankind 
has  acknowledged  the  sun  to  be  both 
luminous  and  hot:  however  various 
may  be  the  opinions  of  man,  upon  this 
luminary,  no  one  has  ever  yet  pretended 
there  was  more  than  one  attached  to 
our  planetary  system,  or  that  the  sun 
is  not  luminous  and  hot ;  but  we  find 
many  very  rational  men  have  said, 
THERE  is  NO  GOD.  Those  who  think 
this  proposition  hideous  and  irrational, 
and  who  affirm  that  God  exists,  do 
they  not  tell  us  at  the  same  time  that 
they  have  never  seen  him,  and  there- 
fore know  nothing  of  him  ?  Theology 
is  a  science,  where  every  thing  is  built 
upon  laws  inverted  from  those  common 
to  the  globe  we  inhabit. 

If  man,  therefore,  had  the  courage  to 
throw  aside  his  prejudices,  which  every 
thing  conspires  to  render  as  durable  as 
himself — if  divested  of  fear  he  would 
examine  coolly — if  guided  by  reason 
he  would  dispassionately  view  the  na- 
ture of  things,  the  evidence  adduced 
in  support  of  any  given  doctrine ;  he 
would,  at  least,  be  under  the  necessity 
to  acknowledge,  that  the  idea  of  the 
Divinity  is  not  innate — that  it  is  not 
anterior  to  his  existence— that  it  is  the 
production  of  time,  acquired  by  com- 
munication with  his  own  species* — 
that,  consequently,  there  was  a  period, 
when  it  did  not  actually  exist  in  him: 
he  would  see  clearly,  that  he  holds  it 
by  tradition  from  those  who  reared 
him:  that  these  themselves  received  it 
from  their  ancestors  :  that  thus  tracing 
it  up,  it  will  be  found  to  have  been  de- 
rived in  the  last  resort,  from  ignorant 
savages,  who  were  our  first  fathers. — 
The  history  of  the  world  will  show 


*  When  men  shall  be  willing  coolly  to  ex- 
amine the  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  God, 
drawn  from  general  consent,  they  will  ac- 
knowledge, that  they  can  gather  nothing 
from  it,  except  that  all  men  have  guessed  that 
there  existed  in  nature  unknown  motive- 
powers,  unknown  causes ;  a  truth  of  which  no 
one  has  ever  doubted,  seeing  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  suppose  effects  without  causes.  Thus 
the  only  difference  betwixt  the  ATHEISTS  and 
the  THEOLOGIAN-S,  or  the  WORSHIPPERS  OF  GOD, 
is,  that  the  first  assign  to  all  the  phenomena 
material,  natural,  sensible,  and  known  causes ; 
whereas,  the  last  assign  them  spiritual,  su- 
pernatural, unintelligible,  and  unknown  caus- 
es. The  God  of  the'theologians,  is  it  in  effect 
any  other  thing  than  an  occult  power  ? 


OP  THE  EXISTENCE  OFGOD. 


209 


that  crafty  legislators,  ambitious  ty- 
rants, blood-stained  conquerors,  have 
availed  themselves  of  the  ignorance, 
the  fears,  the  credulity  of  his  progeni- 
tors, to  turn  to  their  own  profit  an  idea 
to  which  they  rarely  attached  any  other 
substantive  meaning  than  that  of  sub- 
mitting them  to  the  yoke  of  their  own 
domination. 

Without  doubt,  there  have  been  mor- 
tals who  have  boasted  they  have  seen 
the  Divinity ;  but  the  first  man  who 
dared  to  say  this  was  a  liar,  whose  ob- 
ject was  to  take  advantage  of  the  sirr*- 
plicity  of  some,  or  an  enthusiast,  who 
promulgated  for  truths,  the  crazy  reve- 
ries of  his  own  distempered  imagina- 
tion ?  Nevertheless,  is  it  not  a  truth,  that 
these  doctrines  of  crafty  men  are  at  this 
day  the  creed  of  millions,  transmitted 
to  them  by  their  ancestors,  rendered 
sacred  by  time,  read  to  them  in  their 
temples,  and  adorned  with  all  the 
ceremonies  of  religious  worship  ?  In- 
deed that  man,  would  not  experience 
the  most  gentle  treatment  from  the  in- 
furiated Christian,  who  should  to  his 
face  venture  to  dispute  the  divine  mis- 
sion of  his  Jesus.  Thus  the  ancestors 
of  the  Europeans  have  transmitted  to 
their  posterity,  those  ideas  of  the  Di- 
vhiity  which  they  manifestly  received 
from  those  who  deceived  them ;  whose 
impositions,  modified  from  age  to  age, 
subtilized  by  the  priests,  clothed  with 
the  reverential  awe  inspired  by  fear, 
have  by  degrees  acquired  that  solidity, 
received  that  corroboration,  attained 
that  veteran  stability,  which  is  the  na- 
tural result  of  public  sanction,  backed 
by  theological  parade. 

The  word  God  is,  perhaps,  among 
the  first  that  vibrate  on  the  ear  of  man ; 
it  is  reiterated  to  him  incessantly ;  he 
is  taught  to  lisp  it  with  respect ;  to  lis- 
ten to  it  with  fear ;  to  bend  the  knee 
when  it  is  reverberated :  by  dint  of  re- 
petition, by  listening  to  the  fables  of 
antiquity,  by  hearing  it  pronounced  by 
all  ranks  and  persuasions,  he  seriously 
believes  all  men  bring  the  idea  with 
them  into  the  world.  He  thus  con- 
founds a  mechanical  habit  with  in- 
stinct; whilst  it  is  for  want  of  being 
able  to  recall  to  himself  the  first  cir- 
cumstances under  which  his  imagina- 
tion was  awakened  by  this  name ;  for 
want  of  recollecting  all  the  recitals 
made  to  him  during  the  course  of  his 

No.  VII.— 27 


infancy;  for  want  of  accurately  defining 
what  was  instilled  into  him  by  his  edu- 
cation ;  in  short,  because  his  memory 
d  oes  not  furnish  him  with  the  succession 
of  causes  that  have  engraven  it  on  his 
brain,  that  he  believes  this  idea  is  real- 
ly inherent  to  his  being ;  innate  in  all 
his  species.* 

It  is,  however,  uniformly  by  habit, 
that  man  admires,  that  he  fears  a  be- 
ing, whose  name  he  has  attended  to 
from  his  earliest  infancy.  As  soon  as 
he  hears  it  uttered,  he,  without  reflec- 
tion, mechanically  associates  it  with 
those  ideas  with  which  his  imagination 
has  been  filled  by  the  recitals  of  others ; 
with  those  sensations  which  he  has 
been  instructed  to  accompany  it.  Thus, 
if  for  a  season  man  would  be  ingenu- 
ous with  himself,  he  would  concede 
that  the  idea  of  a  God,  and  of  those 
attributes  with  which  he  is  clothed, 
have  their  foundation,  take  their  rise 
in,  and  are  the  fruit  of  the  opinions  of 
his  fathers,  traditionally  infused  into 
him  by  education — confirmed  by  habit 
— corroborated  by  example— enforced 
by  authority.  That  it  very  rarely  hap- 
pens he  examines  these  ideas ;  that 
they  are  for  the  most  part  adopted  by 
inexperience,  propagated  by  tuition, 
rendered  sacred  by  time,  inviolable 
from  respect  to  his  progenitors,  rever- 
enced as  forming  a  part  of  those  insti- 
tutions he  has  most  learned  to  value. 
He  thinks  he  has  always  had  them, 
because  he  has"  had  them  from  his  in- 
fancy; he  considers  them  indubitable, 
because  he  is  never  permitted  to  ques- 
tion them — because  he  never  has  the 
intrepidity  to  examine  their  basis. 

If  it  had  been  the  destiny  of  a  Brah- 
min, or  a  Mussulman,  to  have  drawn 
his  first  breath  on  the  shores  of  Africa, 
he  would  adore,  with  as  much  simpli- 
city, with  as  much  fervour,  the  serpent 
reverenced  by  the  negroes,  as  he  does 


*  lambicus,  who  was  a  Pythagorean  phi- 
losopher not  in  the  highest  repute  with  the 
learned  world,  although  one  of  those  vision- 
ary priests  in  some  estimation  with  theolo- 
gians, (at  least,  if  we  may  venture  to  judge  by 
the  unlimited  draughts  they  have  made  on 
the  hank  of  his  doctrines)  who  was  unques- 
tionably a  favourite  with  the  emperor  Julian, 
says,  that  "anteriorly  to  all  use  of  reason, 
the  notion  of  "the  Gods  is  inspired  by  nature, 
and  that  we  have  even  a  sort  of  feeling  of 
the  Divinity,  preferable  to  the  knowledge  of 
him." 


210 


EXAMINATION  OP  THE  PROOFS 


the  God  his  own  metaphysicians  have 
offered  to  his  reverence.  He  would  be 
equally  indignant  if  any  one  should 
presumptuously  dispute  the  divinity  of 
this  reptile,  which  he  would  have  learn- 
ed to  venerate  from  the  moment  he 
quitted  the  womb  of  his  mother,  as  the 
most  zealous,  enthusiastic  fakir,  when 
the  marTellous  wonders  of  his  prophet 
should  be  brought  into  question ;  or  as 
the  most  subtile  theologian  when  the 
inquiry  turned  upon  the  incongruous 
qualities  with  which  he  has  decorated 
his  Gods.  Nevertheless,  if  this  ser- 
pent God  of  the  negro  should  be  con- 
tested, they  could  not  at  least  dispute 
his  existence.  Simple  as  may  be  the 
mind  of  this  dark  son  of  nature,  un- 
common as  may  be  the  qualities  with 
which  he  has  clothed  his  reptile,  he 
still  may  be  evidenced  by  all  who 
choose  to  exercise  their  organs  of  sight. 
It  is  by  no  means  the  same  with  the 
immaterial,  incorporeal,  contradictory 
God,  or  with  the  deified  man,  which 
our  modern  thinkers  have  so  subtilly 
composed.  By  dint  of  dreaming,  of 
reasoning,  and  of  subtilizing,  they  have 
rendered  his  existence  impossible  to 
whoever  shall  dare  to  examine  it  coolly. 
We  shall  never  be  able  to  figure  to  our- 
selves a  being,  who  is  only  composed 
of  abstractions  and  of  negative  quali- 
ties ;  that  is  to  say,  who  has  no  one  of 
those  qualities,  which  the  human  mind 
is  susceptible  of  judging.  Our  theo- 
logians do  not  know  that  which  they 
adore ;  they  have  not  one  real  idea  of 
the  being  with  which  they  unceasingly 
occupy  themselves ;  this  being  would 
have  been  long  since  annihilated,  if 
those  to  whom  they  announced  him 
had  dared  to  examine  into  his  exist- 
ence. 

Indeed,  at  the  very  first  step  we  find 
ourselves  arrested ;  even  the  existence 
of  this  most  important  and  most  rever- 
ed being,  is  yet  a  problem  for  whoever 
shall  coolly  weigh  the  proofs  which 
theology  gives  of  it ;  and  although,  be- 
fore reasoning  or  disputing  upon  the  na- 
ture and  the  qualities  of  a  being,  it  was 
necessary  to  verify  his  existence,  that 
of  the  Divinity  is  very  far  from  being 
demonstrable  to  any  man  who  shall 
be  willing  to  consult  good  sense. — 
What  do  I  say?  The  theologians 
themselves  have  scarcely  ever  been  in 
unison  upon  the  proofs  of  which  they 


have  availed  themselves  to  establish 
the  divine  existence.  Since  the  hu- 
man mind  has  occupied  itself  with  its 
God  (and  when  has  it  not  been  occu- 
pied with  it?)  it  has  not  hitherto  ar- 
rived at  demonstrating  the  existence 
of  this  interesting  object,  in  a  manner 
satisfactory  to  those  themselves  who 
are  anxious  that  we  should  be  con- 
vinced of  it.  From  age  to  age,  new 
champions  of  the  Divinity,  profound 
philosophers,  and  subtile  theologians, 
have  sought  new  proofs  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  because  they  were,  with- 
out doubt,  but  little  satisfied  with 
those  of  their  predecessors.  Those 
thinkers  who  nattered  themselves  with 
having  demonstrated  this  great  prob- 
lem, were  frequently  accused  of  ATHE- 
ISM, and  of  having  betrayed  the  cause 
of  God,  by  the  weakness  of  those  ar- 
guments with  which  they  had  support- 
ed it.*  Men  of  very  greatgenius,  have  in- 
deed successively  miscarried  in  their  de- 
monstrations, or  in  the  solutions  which 
they  have  given  of  it ;  in  believing  they 
had  surmounted  a  difficulty,  they  have 
continually  given  birth  to  a  hundred 
others.  It  is  to  no  purpose  that  the  great- 
est metaphysicians  have  exhausted  all 
their  efforts  to  prove  that  God  existed, 
to  reconcile  his  incompatible  attributes, 
or  to  reply  to  the  most  simple  objec- 
tions ;  they  have  not  yet  been  able  to 
succeed.  The  difficulties  which  are 
opposed  to  them,  are  sufficiently  clear 
to  be  understood  by  an  infant ;  whilst, 
in  the  most  learned  nations,  they  will 
be  troubled  to  find  twelve  men  capable 
of  understanding  the  demonstrations, 
the  solutions,  and  the  replies  of  a  Des- 
cartes, of  a  lieibqftz,  and  of  a  Clarke, 
when  they  endeavour  to  prove  to  us 
the  existence  of  the  Divinity.  Do  not  let 
us  be  at  all  astonished;  men  never  un- 
derstand themselves  when  they  speak 
to  us  of  Godr  how  then  should  they  be 

*  Descartes,  Paschal,  and  Dr,  Clarke  him- 
self, have  been  accused  of  ATHEISM  by  the 
theologians  of  their  time ;.  this  has  not  pre- 
vented subsequent  theologians  from  making, 
use  of  their  proofs,  and  giving  them  as  ex- 
tremely valid.  See  further  on,  the  tenth 
chapter.  Not  long  since,  a  celebrated  author, 
under  the  name  of  Doctor  BOWMAN,  publish- 
ed a  work,  in  which  he  pretends,  that  all  the 
proofs  of  the  existence  of  God  hitherto  offered, 
are  crazy  and  futile :  he  substitutes  his  owrt 
in  their  place,  full  as  little  convincing  aa  the 
others. 


OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  QOD. 


211 


able  to  understand  each  other,  or  agree 
amongst  themselves,  when  they  reason 
upon  the  nature  and  the  qualities  of  a 
being,  created  by  various  imaginations, 
which  each  man  is  obliged  to  see  di- 
versely, and  upon  the  account  of  whom 
men  will  always  be  in  an  equal  state  of 
ignorance,  for  want  of  having  a  com- 
mon standard  upon  which  to  form  their 
judgments  of  him. 

To  convince  ourselves  of  the  little 
solidity  of  those  proofs  which  they 
give  us  of  the  existence  of  the  theolo- 
gical God,  and  of  the  inutility  of  those 
efforts  which  they  have  made  to  recon- 
cile his  discordant  attributes,  let  us 
hear  what  the  celebrated  Doctor  Sam- 
uel Clarke  has  said,  who,  in  his  trea- 
tise concerning  the  being  and  attri- 
butes of  God,  is  supposed  to  have  spo- 
ken in  the  most  convincing  manner.* 

*  Although  many  people  look  upon  the 
•work  of  Doctor  Clarke,  as  the  mast  solid  and 
the  most  convincing,  it  is  well  to  observe,  that 
many  theologians  of  his  time,  and  of  his 
country,  have  by  no  means  judged  of  it  in  the 
same  manner,  and  have  looked  upon  his 
proofs  as  insufficient,  and  his  method  as  dan- 
gerous to  his  cause.  Indeed,  Doctor  Clarke 
Has  pretended  to  prove  the  existence  of  God 
a  priori,  this  is  what  others  deem  impossible, 
and  look  upon  it,  with  reason,  as  begging  the 
question.  This  manner  of  proving  it  has  been 
rejected  by  the  school-men,  such  as  Albert 
the  Great,  Thomas  <f  Aouinus,  John  Scot,  and 
by  the  greater  part  of  the  moderns,  with  the 
exception  of  Suarez.  They  have  pretended 
that  the  existence  of  God  was  impossible  to 
be  demonstrated  a  priori,  seeing  that  there  is 
nothing  anterior  to  the  first  of  causes ;  but 
that  this  existence  could  only  be  proved  a 
posteriori ;  that  is  to  say,  by  its  effects.  In 
consequence,  the  work  of  Doctor  Clarke  was 
attacked  rudely  by  a  great  number  of  theolo- 
gians, who  accused  him  of  innovation,  and 
of  deserting  their  cause,  by  employing  a 
method  unusual,  rejected,  and  but  little  suit- 
able to  prove  any  thing.  Those  who  may 
wish  to  know  the  reasons  which  have  been 
used  against  the  demonstrations  of  Clarke, 
will  find  them  in  an  English  work,  entitled, 
An  Inquiry  into  the  ideas  of  Space,  Time, 
Immensity,  tf-e.  by  Edmund  Law,  printed  at 
Cambridge,  1734.  If  the  author  proves  in  it 
with  success,  that  the  demonstrations  a  pri- 
ori, of  Doctor  Clarke,  are  false,  it  will  be  easy 
to  convince  ourselves  by  every  thing  which  is 
said  in  our  work,  that  all  the  demonstrations 
a  posteriori,  are  not  better  founded.  For  the 
rest,  the  great  esteem  in  which  they  hold  the 
book  of  Clarke  at  the  present  day,  proves  that 
the  theologians  are  not  in  accord  amongst 
themselves,  frequently  changing  their  opin- 
ions, and  are  not  difficult  upon  the  demon- 
strations which  they  give  of  the  existence  of 
a  being  which  hitherto  is  by  no  means  demon- 


Those  who  have  followed  him,  indeed, 
have  done  no  more  than  repeat  his 
ideas,  or  present  his  proofs  under  new 
forms.  After  the  examination  which 
we  are  going  to  make,  we  dare  say  it 
will  be  found  that  his  proofs  are  but  lit- 
tle conclusive,  that  his  principles  are 
unfounded,  and  that  his  pretended  so- 
lutions are  not  suitable  to  resolve  any 
thing.  In  short,  in  the  God  of  Doctor 
Clarke,  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  great- 
est theologians,  they  will  only  see  a 
chimera  established  upon  gratuitous 
suppositions,  and  formed  by  the  confu- 
sed assemblage  of  extravagant  quali- 
ties, which  render  his  existence  totally 
impossible ;  in  a  word,  in  this  God 
will  only  be  found  a  vain  phantom, 
substituted  to  the  energy  of  nature, 
which  has  always  been  obstinately 
mistaken.  We  are  going  to  follow, 
step  by  step,  different  propositions  in 
which  this  learned  theologian  deve- 
lops the  received  opinions  upon  the 
Divinity.  Dr.  Clarke  sets  out  with 
saying : — 

1st.  "  Something  existed  from  all 
eternity." 

This  proposition  is  evident — has 
no  occasion  for  proofs.  Matter  has 
existed  from  all  eternity,  its  forms 
alone  are  evanescent ;  matter  is  the 
great  engine  used  by  nature  to  produce 
all  her  phenomena,  or  -rather  it  is  na- 
ture herself.  We  have  some  idea  of 
matter,  sufficient  to  warrant  the  con- 
clusion that  this  has  always  existed. 
First,  that. which  exists,  supposes  ex- 
istence essential  to  its  being.  That 
which  cannot  annihilate  itself,  exists 
necessarily ;  it  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive that  that  which  cannot  cease  to 
exist,  or  that  which  cannot  annihilate 
itself,  could  ever  have  had  a  beginning. 
If  matter  cannot  be  annihilated,  it  could 
not  commence  to  be.  Thus  we  say  to 
Dr.  Clarke,  that  it  is  matter,  it  is  na- 
ture, acting  by  her  own  peculiar  en- 
ergy, of  which  no  particle  is  ever  in  an 
absolute  state  of  rest,  which  has  al- 
ways existed.  The  various  material 
bodies  which  this  nature  contains  of- 
ten change  their  form,  their  combina- 
tion, their  properties,  their  mode  of  ac- 
tion ;  but  their  principles  or  elements 

strated.  However,  it  is  certain  that  the  work 
of  Clarke,  in  despite  of  the  contradictions 
which  he  has  experienced,  enjoys  the  greatest 
reputation. 


212 


EXAMINATION  OF  THE  PROOFS 


are  indestructible — have  never  been 
able  to  commence.  What  the  doctor  ac- 
tually understands,  when  he  makes  the 
assertion,  that  "  an  eternal  duration  is 
now  actually  past,"  is  not  quite  so 
clear;  yet  he  affirms,  that  ':  not  to  be- 
lieve it  would  be  a  real  and  express 
contradiction." 

2d.  "  There  has  existed  from  eter- 
nity some  one  "  unchangeable  and  in- 
dependent being." 

We  may  fairly  inquire  what  is  this 
being?  Is  it  independent  of  its  own 
peculiar  essence,  or  of  those  properties 
which  constitute  it  such  as  it  is?  We 
shall  further  inquire,  if  this  being, 
whatever  it  may  be,  can  make  the  other 
beings  which  it  produces,  or  which  it 
moves,  act  otherwise  than  they  do,  ac- 
cording to  the  properties  which  it  has 
given  them?  And  in  this  case  we  shall 
ask,  if  this  being,  such  as  it  may  be 
supposed  to  be,  does  not  act  necessari- 
ly ;  if  it  is  not  obliged  to  employ  indis- 
pensable means  to  fulfil  its  designs,  to 
arrive  at  the  end  which  it  either  has,  or 
may  be  supposed  to  have  in  view  ? 
Then  we  shall  say,  that  nature  is 
obliged  to  act  after  her  essence ;  that 
every  thing  which  takes  place  in  her 
is  necessary ;  and  that  if  they  suppose 
it  governed  by  a  Deity,  this  God  cannot 
act  otherwise  than  he  does,  and  conse- 
quently is  himself  subjected  to  necessity. 

A  man  is  said  to  be  independent, 
when  he  is  determined  in  his  actions 
only  by  the  general  causes  which  are 
accustomed  to  move  him ;  he  is  equally 
said  to  be  dependant  on  another,  when 
he  cannot  act  but  in  consequence  of 
the  determination  which  this  last  gives 
him.  A  body  is  dependant  on  another 
body  when  it  owes  to  it  its  existence, 
and  its  mode  of  action.  A  being  ex- 
isting from  eternity  cannot  owe  his 
existence  to  any  other  being ;  he  can- 
not then  be  dependant  upon  him,  ex- 
cept he  owes  his  action  to  him ;  but  it  is 
evident  that  an  eternal  or  self-existent 
being  contains  in  his  own  nature  every 
thing  that  is  necessary  for  him  to  act : 
then,  matter  being  eternal,  is  necessa- 
rily independent  in  the  sense  we  have 
explained ;  of  course,  it  has  no  occa- 
sion for  a  mover  upon  which  it  ought 
to  depend. 

This  eternal  being  is  also  immu- 
table, if  by  this  attribute  be  understood 
that  he  cannot  change  his  nature  ;  but 


if  it  be  intended  to  infer  by  it  that  he 
cannot  change  his  mode  of  action  or 
existence,  it  is  without  doubt  deceiving 
themselves,  since  even  in  supposing  an 
immaterial  being,  they  would  be  obli- 
ged to  acknowledge  in  him  different 
modes  of  being,  different  volitions,  dif- 
ferent ways  of  acting ;  particularly  if 
he  was  not  supposed  totally  deprived 
of  action,  in  which  case  he  would  be 
perfectly  useless.    Indeed,  it  follows  of 
course  that  to  change  his  mode  of  ac- 
tion he  must  necessarily  change  his 
manner  of  being.     From  hence  it  will 
be  obvious,  that  the   theologians,   in 
making  their  God  immutable,  render 
him  immoveable ;  consequently  he  can- 
not act.     An  immutable  being,  could 
evidently  neither  have  successive  voli- 
tion, nor  produce  successive  action  ;  if 
this  being  has  created  matter,  or  given 
birth  to  the  universe,  there  must  have 
been  a  time  in  which  he  was  willing 
that  this  matter,  this  universe,  should 
exist ;  and  this  time  must  have  been 
preceded  by  another  time,  in  which  he 
was  willing  that  it  might  not  yet  exist. 
If  Ood  be  the  author  of  all  things,  as 
well  as  of  the  motion  and  of  the  com- 
binations of  matter,  he  is  unceasingly 
occupied  in  producing  and  destroying; 
in  consequence,  he  cannot  be  called  im- 
mutable, touching  his  mode  of  existing. 
The  material  world  always  maintains 
itself  by   motion,   and  the   continual 
change  of  its  parts;  the  sum  of  the  beings 
who  compose  it,  or  of  the  elements 
which  act  in  it,  is  invariably  the  same ; 
in  this  sense  the  immutability  of  the 
universe  is  much  more  easy  of  com- 
prehension, much  more  demonstrable 
than  that  of  any  other  being  to  whom 
they  would  attribute  all  the  effects,  all 
the  mutations  which  take  place.     Na- 
ture is  not  more  to  be  accused  of  mu- 
tability, on  account  of  the  succession 
of  its  forms,  than  the   eternal  being  is 
by  the  theologians,  by  the  diversity  of 
his  decrees.* 


*  Here  we  shall  be  able  to  perceive  that, 
supposing  the  laws  by  which  nature  acts  to 
be  immutable,  it  does  not  require  any  of  these 
logical  distinctions  to  account  for  the  changes 
that  take  place :  the  mutation  which  results, 
is,  on  the  contrary,  a  striking  proof  of  the  im- 
mutability of  the  system  which  produces 
them ;  and  completely  brings  nature  under 
the  range  of  this  second  proposition  as  stated 
by  Dr.  Clarke. 


OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OP  GOD. 


213 


3d.  "  That  unchangeable  and  in- 
dependent being,  which  has  existed 
from  eternity  without  any  eternal 
cause  of  its  existence,  must  be  self- 
existent,  that  is,  necessarily  existing." 

This  proposition  is  merely  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  first ;  we  reply  to  it  by  in- 
quiring, Why  matter,  which  is  inde- 
structible, should  not  be  self-existent  ? 
It  is  evident  that  a  being  who  had  no 
beginning,  must  be  self-existent ;  if  he 
had  existed  by  another,  he  would  have 
commenced  to  be;  consequently  he 
would  not  be  eternal.  Those  who  make 
matter  coeternal  with  God,  do  no 
more  than  multiply  beings  without  ne- 
cessity. 

4th.  "  What  the  substance  or  essence 
of  that  being  which  is  self-existent, 
or  necessarily  existing,  is,  we  h'ave 
no  idea  ;  neither  is  it  at  all  possible 
for  us  to  comprehend  it." 

Dr.  Clarke  would  have  spoken  more 
correctly  if  he  had  said  his  essence  is 
impossible.  Nevertheless,  we  shall 
readily  concede  that  the  essence  of  mat- 
ter is  incomprehensible,  or  at  least,  that 
we  conceive  it  very  feebly  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  we  are  affected  by  it ;  but 
we  must  also  concede  that  we  are  much 
less  able  to  conceive  the  Divinity,  who 
is  impervious  on  any  side.  Thus  it 
must  necessarily  be  concluded,  that  it 
is  folly  to  argue  upon  it,  since  it  is  by 
matter  alone  we  could  have  any  know- 
ledge of  him ;  that  is  to  say,  by  which 
we  could  assure  ourselves  of  his  exist- 
ence— by  which  we  could  at  all  guess 
at  his  qualities.  In  short,  we  must  con- 
clude, that  every  thing  related  of  the 
Divinity,  either  proves  him  material,  or 
else  proves  the  impossibility  in  which 
the  human  mind  will  always  find  itself, 
of  conceiving  any  being  different  from 
matter ;  without  extent,  yet  omnipre- 
sent ;  immaterial,  yet  acting  upon  mat- 
ter ;  spiritual,  yet  producing  matter ; 
immutable,  yet  putting  every  thing  in 
activity,  &c. 

Indeed  it  must  be  allowed  that  the 
incomprehensibility  of  the  Divinity 
does  not  distinguish  him  from  matter ; 
this  will  not  be  more  easy  of  compre- 
hension when  we  shall  associate  it  with 
a  being  much  less  comprehensible  than 
itself;  and  of  this  last  we  have  some 
slender  knowledge  through  some  of  its 
parts.  We  do  not  certainly  know  the 
essence  of  any  being,  if  by  that  word 


we  are  to  understand  that  which  con- 
stitutes its  peculiar  nature.  We  only 
know  matter  by  the  sensations,  the  per- 
ceptions, the  ideas  which  it  furnishes; 
it  is  according  to  these  that  we  judge 
it  to  be  either  favourable  or  unfavour- 
able, following  the  particular  disposi- 
tion of  our  organs.  But  when  a  being 
does  not  act  upon  any  part  of  our  or- 
ganic structure,  it  does  not  exist  for  us ; 
we  cannot,  without  exhibiting  folly, 
without  betraying  our  ignorance,  with- 
out falling  into  obscurity,  either  speak 
of  its  nature,  or  assign  its  qualities ; 
our  senses  are  the  only  channel  by 
which  we  could  have  formed  the  slight- 
est idea  of  it.  The  incomprehensibili- 
ty of  the  Divinity  ought  to  convince 
man  that  it  is  folly  to  seek  after  it ; 
but  this,  however,  would  not  suit  with 
those  priests  who  are  willing  to  reason 
upon  him  continually,  to  show  the 
depth  of  their  learning — to  persuade 
the  uninformed  they  understand  that 
which  is  incomprehensible  to  all  men  ; 
by  which  they  expect  to  be  able  to  sub- 
mit him  to  their  own  views.  Never- 
theless, if  the  Divinity  be  incompre- 
hensible, we  must  conclude  that  a 
priest,  does  not  comprehend  him  better 
than  other  men ;  and  the  wisest  or  the 
surest  way  is,  not  to  be  guided  by  the 
imagination  of  a  theologian. 

5th.  "  Though  the  substance,  or  es- 
sence of  the  self-existent  being,  is  in 
itself  absolutely  incomprehensible  to 
us,  yet  many  of  the  essential  attri- 
butes of  his  nature  are  strictly  de- 
monstrable, as  well  as  his  existence. 
Thus,  in  the  first  place,  the  self-ex- 
istent being  must  of  necessity  be  eter- 
nal." 

This  proposition  differs  in  nothing 
from  the  first,  except  Dr.  Clarke  does 
here  understand  that  as  the  self-exist- 
ent being  had  no  beginning,  he  can 
have  no  end.  However  this  may  be, 
we  must  ever  inquire,  Why  should  not 
this  be  matter  ?  We  shall  further  ob- 
serve, that  matter  not  being  capable  of 
annihilation,  exists  necessarily,  conse- 
quently will  never  cease  to  exist ;  that 
the  human  mind  has  no  means  of  con- 
ceiving how  matter  should  originate 
from  that  which  is  not  itself  matter : 
is  it  not  obvious,  that  matter  is  neces- 
sary; that  there  is  nothing,  except  its 
powers,  its  arrangement,  its  combina- 
tions, which  are  contingent  or  evanes- 


214 


EXAMINATION   OF  THE   PROOFS 


cent?  The  general  motion  is  neces- 
sary, but  the  given  motion  is  not  so  ; 
only  during  the  season  that  the  parti- 
cular combinations  subsist,  of  which 
this  motion  is  the  consequence,  or  the 
effect :  we  may  be  competent  to  change 
the  direction,  to  either  accelerate  or  re- 
tard, to  suspend  or  arrest,  a  particular 
motion,  but  the  general  motion  can 
never  possibly  be  annihilated.  Man, 
in  dying,  ceases  to  live ;  that  is  to  say, 
he  no  longer  either  walks,  thinks  or 
acts  in  the  mode  which  is  peculiar  to 
human  organization:  but  the  matter 
which  composed  his  body,  the  matter 
which  formed  his  mind,  does  not  cease 
to  move  on  that  account:  it  simply  be- 
comes susceptible  of  another  species 
of  motion. 

6th.  "  The  self-existent  being  must 
of  necessity  be  infinite  and  omnipre- 
sent." 

The  word  infinite  presents  only  a 
negative  idea  which  excludes  all 
bounds  :  it  is  evident  that  a  being  who 
exists  necessarily,  who  is  independent, 
cannot  be  limited  by  any  thing  which 
is  out  of  himself ;  he  must  consequent- 
ly be  his  own  limits  :  in  this  sense  we 
may  say  he  is  infinite. 

Touching  what  is  said  of  his  omni- 
presence, it  is  equally  evident  that  if 
there  be  nothing  exterior  to  this  being, 
either  there  is  no  place  in  which  he 
must  not  be  present,  or  that  there  will 
be  only  himself  and  the  vacuum.  This 
granted,  I  shall  inquire  if  matter  ex- 
ists ;  if  it  does  not  at  least  occupy  a 
portion  of  space?  In  this  case,  mat- 
ter, or  the  universe,  must  exclude  every 
other  being  who  is  not  matter,  from  that 
place  which  the  material  beings  occu- 
py in  space.  In  asking  whether  the 
God  of  the  theologians  be  by  chance 
the  abstract  being  which  they  call  the 
vacuum  or  space,  they  will  reply,  no  ! 
They  will  further  insist,  that  their  God, 
who  is  not  matter,  penetrates  that  which 
is  matter.  But  it  must  be  obvious,  that 
to  penetrate  matter,  it  is  necessary  to 
have  some  correspondence  with  matter, 
consequently  to  have  extent;  now  to 
have  extent,  is  to  have  one  of  the  pro- 
perties of  matter.  If  the  Divinity  pene- 
trates matter,  then  he  is  material ;  by  a 
necessary  deduction  he  is  inseparable 
from  matter ;  then  if  he  is  omnipresent, 
he  will  be  in  every  thing.  This  the  the- 
ologian will  not  allow :  he  will  say  it 


is  a  mystery ;  by  which  I  shall  under- 
stand that  he  is  himself  ignorant  how 
to  account  for  the  existence  of  his  God; 
this  will  not  be  the  case  with  making 
nature  act  after  immutable  laws ;  she 
will  of  necessity  be  every  where,  in  my 
body,  in  my  arm,  in  every  other  material 
being,because  matter  composes  them  all. 

7th.  "  The  self-existent  being  must 
of  necessity  be  but  one." 

If  there  be  nothing  exterior  to  a  being 
who  exists  necessarily,  it  must  follow 
that  he  is  unique.  It  will  be  ebvious 
that  this  proposition  is  the  same  with 
the  preceding  one  ;  at  least,  if  they  are 
not  willing  to  deny  the  existence  of 
the  material  world  or  to  say  with  Spi- 
nosa,  that  there  is  not,  and  that  we  can- 
not conceive  any  other  substance  than 
God.  Prater  Deum  neque  dari  ne- 
que  concipi  potest  substantia,  says  this 
celebrated  athiest,  in  his  fourteenth 
proposition. 

8th.  "  The  self-existent  and  origi- 
nal cause  of  all  things,  must  be  an  in- 
telligent being." 

Here  Dr.  Clarke  most  unquestion- 
ably assigns  a  human  quality:  intel- 
ligence is  a  faculty  appertaining  to  or- 
ganized or  animated  beings,  of  which 
we  have  no  knowledge  out  of  these  be- 
ings. To  have  intelligence,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  think;  to  think,  it  is  requisite 
to  have  ideas ;  to  have  ideas,  supposes 
senses ;  when  senses  exist  they  are  ma- 
terial ;  when  they  are  material,  they 
cannot  be  a  pure  spirit,  in  the  language 
of  the  theologian. 

The  necessary  being  who  compre- 
hends, who  contains,  who  produces  ani- 
mated beings,  contains,  includes,  and 
produces  intelligence.  But  has  the 
great  whole  a  peculiar  intelligence, 
which  moves  it,  which  makes  it  act, 
which  determines  it  in  the  mode  that 
intelligence  moves  and  determines  ani- 
mated bodies ;  or  rather,  is  not  this  in- 
telligence the  consequence  of  immu- 
table laws,  a  certain  modification  re- 
sulting from  certain  combinations  of 
matter,  which  exists  under  one  form  of 
these  combinations,  but  is  wanting  un- 
der another  form?  This  is  assuredly 
what  nothing  is  competent  to  prove. 
Man  having  placed  himself  in  the  first 
rank  in  the  universe,  has  been  desi- 
rous to  judge  of  every  thing  after  what 
he  saw  within  himself,  because  he  has 
pretended  that  in  order  to  be  perfect  it 


OF   THE  EXISTENCE   OF   GOD. 


215 


was  necessary  to  be  like  himself.  Here 
is  the  source  of  all  his  erroneous  rea- 
soning upon  nature  and  his  Gods.  He 
has  therefore  concluded  that  it  would 
be  injurious  to  the  Divinity  not  to  in- 
vest him  with  a  quality  which  is  found 
estimable  in  man — which  he  prizes 
highly — to  which  he  attaches  the  idea 
of  perfection — which  he  considers  as 
a  manifest  proof  of  superiority.  He 
sees  his  fellow-creature  is  offended 
when  he  is  thought  to  lack  intelligence ; 
he  therefore  judges  it  to  be  the  same 
with  the  Divinity.  He  denies  this 
quality  to  nature,  because  he  considers 
her  a  mass  of  ignoble  matter,  incapable 
of  self-action,  although  she  contains 
and  produces  intelligent  beings.  But 
this  is  rather  a  personification  of  an 
abstract  quality,  than  an  attribute  of 
the  Deity,  with  whose  perfections,  with 
whose  mode  of  existence,  he  cannot 
by  any  possible  means  become  acquaint- 
ed according  to  the  fifth  proposition  of 
Dr.Clarke  himself.  It  is  in  the  earth  that 
is  engendered  those  living  animals  call- 
ed Avorms  ;  yet  we  do  not  say  the  earth 
is  a  living  creature.  The  bread  which 
man  eats,  the  wine  that  he  drinks,  are 
not  themselves  thinking  substances  ; 
yet  they  nourish,  sustain,  and  cause 
those  beings  to  think,  who  are  suscep- 
tible of  this  modification  of  their  ex- 
istence. It  is  likewise  in  nature,  that 
is  formed  intelligent,  feeling,  thinking 
beings ;  yet  it  cannot  be  rationally  said, 
that  nature  feels,  thinks,  and  is  intel- 
ligent after  the  manner  of  these  be- 
ings, who  nevertheless  spring  out  of 
her  bosom. 

How,  they  will  say  to  us,  refuse  to 
the  Creator,  these  qualities  which  we 
discover  in  his  creatures !  The  work 
\vould  then  be  more  perfect  than  the 
workman !  God  who  hath  made  the 
eye,  shall  he  not  see  ?  God,  who  hath 
formed  the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear  1  But 
if  we  adopt  this  mode  of  reasoning,ought 
we  not  to  attribute  to  God  all  the  other 
qualities  that  we  shall  meet  with  in  his 
creatures  ?  Should  we  not  say,  with 
equal  foundation,  that  the  God  who  has 
made  matter,  is  himself  matter ;  that 
the  God  who  has  fashioned  the  body, 
must  possess  a  body;  that  the  God 
who  has  made  so  many  irrational  be- 
ings, is  irrational  himself;  that  the  God 
who  has  created  man  who  sins,  is  liable 
himself  to  sin?  If,  because  the  works 


of  God  possess  certain  qualities,  and  are 
susceptible  of  certain  modifications,  we 
conclude  that  God  possesses  them  also, 
we  shall  be  obliged  by  parity  of  reason- 
ing to  conclude  that  God  is  material, 
has  extent,  has  gravity,  is  wicked,  &c. 

To  attribute  wisdom,  or  an  infinite 
intelligence  to  God,  that  is  to  say,  to 
the  universal  mover  of  nature,  there 
should  be  neither  folly,  nor  evil,  nor 
wickedness,  nor  confusion  on  the  earth. 
They  will  perhaps  tell  us,  that,  even 
according  to  our  own  principles,  evil 
and  disorder  are  necessary ;  but  our 
principles  do  not  admit  of,  a  wise  and 
intelligent  God,  who  should  have  the 
power  of  preventing  them.  If,  in  ad- 
mitting such  a  God,  evil  is  not  less  ne- 
cessary, what  end  can  this  God,  so  wise, 
so  powerful,  and  so  intelligent,  be  able 
to  serve,  seeing  that  he  is  himself  sub- 
jected to  necessity  ?  From  thence  he 
is  no  longer  independent,  his  power 
vanishes,  he  is  obliged  to  admit  a  free 
course  to  the  essence  of  things ;  he  can- 
not prevent  causes  from  producing  their 
effects;  he  cannot  oppose  himself  to 
evil ;  he  cannot  render  man  more  hap- 
py than  he  is ;  he  cannot,  consequently, 
be  good ;  he  is  perfectly  useless  ;  he  is 
no  more  than  the  unconcerned  witness 
of  that  which  must  necessarily  happen  ; 
he  cannot  do  otherwise  than  will  every 
thing  which  takes  place  in  the  world. 
Nevertheless,  they  tell  us,  in  the  suc- 
ceeding proposition,  that — 

9th.  "  The  self-existent  and  origi- 
nal cause  of  all  things,  is  not  a  neces- 
sary agent,  but  a  being  endowed  with 
liberty  and  choice." 

Man  is  called  free,  when  he  finds 
within  himself  motives  which  deter- 
mine him  to  action,  or  when  his  will 
finds  no  obstacle  to  the  performance  of 
that  to  which  his  motives  have  deter- 
mined him.  God,  or  the  necessary  be- 
ing, of  which  question  is  here  made, 
does  he  not  find  obstacles  to  the  execu- 
tion of  his  projects'?  Is  he  willing  that 
evil  should  be  committed,  or  can  he  not 
prevent  it  ?  In  this  case,  he  is  not  free, 
and  the  will  meets  with  continual  ob- 
stacles ;  or  else,  we  must  say,  he  con- 
sents to  the  commission  of  sin  ;  that 
he  is  willing  we  should  offend  him ; 
that  he  suffers  men  to  restrain  his 
liberty,  and  derange  his  projects.  How 
will  the  theologians  draw  themselves 
out  of  this  perplexing  intricacy  ? 


216 


EXAMINATION   OF  THE   PROOFS 


On  the  other  hand,  the  God  whom 
they  suppose  cannot  act,  but  in  conse- 
quence of  the  Jaws  of  his  peculiar  ex- 
istence, we  should  be  enabled  then  to 
calla&eittg-  endowed  with  liberty,  as  far 
as  his  actions  should  not  be  determined 
by  any  thing  which  should  be  exterior 
to  himself,  but  this  would  visibly  be  an 
abuse  of  terms :  indeed,  we  cannot  say, 
that  a  beinff  who  is  not  capable  of  act- 
ing otherwise  than  he  does,  and  who 
can  never  cease  to  act,  but  in  virtue  of 
the  laws  of  his  peculiar  existence,  is  a 
being  possessed  of  liberty — there  is 
evidently  necessity  in  all  his  actions. 
Ask  a  theologian,  if  God  has  power  to 
reward  crime,  and  punish  virtue  ?  Ask 
him  again,  if  God  can  love  him,  or  if 
he  is  a  free  agent  when  the  action  of  a 
man  necessarily  produces  in  him  a  new 
will?  A  man  is  a  being  exterior  to 
God,  and  nevertheless  they  pretend, 
that  the  conduct  of  this  man  has  an 
influence  on  this  being  endowed  with 
liberty,  and  necessarily  determines  his 
will.  In  short,  we  demand  if  God  can 
avoid  to  will  that  which  he  willeth, 
and  not  do  that  which  he  doeth  1  Is 
not  his  will  necessitated  by  intelligence, 
wisdom  and  views  which  they  suppose 
him  to  have  ?  If  God  be  thus  connect- 
ed, he  is  no  more  a  free  agent  than 
man:  if  every  thing  which  he  does 
be  necessary,  he  is  nothing  more  than 
destiny,  fatality,  the/atom  of  the  an- 
cients, and  the  moderns  have  not  chang- 
ed the  Divinity,  although  they  have 
changed  his  name. 

They  will,  perhaps,  tell  us,  that  God 
is  free,  insomuch  that  he  is  not  bound 
by  the  laws  of  nature,  or  by  those 
which  he  imposes  on  all  beings.  Never- 
theless, if  it  be  true  that  he  has  made 
these  laws,  if  they  are  the  effect  of  hi 
infinite  wisdom,  of  his  supreme  intel- 
ligence, he  is  by  his  essence  obliged  to 
follow  them,  or  else  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged that  it  would  be  possible  for 
God  to  act  irrationally.  Theologians 
fearing,  without  doubt,  to  restrain  the 
liberty  of  God,  have  supposed  that  he 
was  not  subjected  to  any  laws,  as  we 
have  before  proved ;  in  consequence, 
they  have  made  him  a  despotic,  fantas- 
tical, and  strange  being,  whose  power 
gives  him  the  right  to  violate  all  the  laws 
which  he  has  himself  established.  By 
the  pretended  miracles  which  they  have 
attributed  to  him,  he  derogates  from  the 


laws  of  nature  ;  by  the  conduct  which 
they  have  supposed  him  to  hold,  he 
acts  very  frequently  in  a  mode  contra- 
ry to  his  divine  wisdom,  and  to  the  rea- 
son which  he  has  given  to  men,  to  re- 
gulate their  judgments.  If  God  is  a 
free  agent  in  this  sense,  all  religion  is 
useless ;  it  can  only  found  itself  upon 
those  immutable  rules  which  this  God 
has  prescribed  to  himself,  and  upon 
those  engagements  which  he  has  enter- 
ed into  with  the  human  species  ?  As 
soon  as  religion  does  not  suppose  him 
bound  by  his  covenants,  it  destroys  it- 
self, it  commits  suicide. 

10th.  "  The  self-existent  being,  the 
supreme  cause  of  all  things,  must  of 
necessity  have  infinite  power." 

There  is  no  power  but  in  him,  this 
power  then  has  no  limits  ;  but  if  it  is 
God  who  enjoys  this  power,  man  ought 
not  to  have  the  power  of  doing  evil ; 
without  which  he  would  be  in  a  state 
to  act  contrary  to  the  divine  power ; 
there  would  be  exteriorly  to  God  a 
power  capable  of  counterbalancing  his, 
or  of  preventing  it  from  producing  those 
effects  which  he  proposes  to  himself; 
the  Divinity  would  be  obliged  to  suffer 
that  evil  which  he  could  prevent. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  man  is  free  to 
sin,  God  is  not  himself  a  free  agent, 
his  conduct  is  necessarily  determined 
by  the  actions  of  man.  An  equitable 
monarch  is  not  a  free  agent  when  he 
believes  himself  obliged  to  act  confor- 
mably to  the  laws  which  he  has  sworn 
to  observe,  or  which  he  cannot  violate 
without  wounding  his  justice.  A  mon- 
arch is  not  powerful  when  the  least  of 
his  subjects  has  the  power  of  insulting 
him,  of  openly  resisting  him,  or  secret- 
ly making  all  his  projects  miscarry. 
Nevertheless,  all  the  religions  of  the 
world,  show  us  God  under  the  charac- 
ter of  an  absolute  sovereign,  of  whom 
nothing  is  capable  to  constrain  the  will, 
nor  limit  the  power;  whilst  on  the 
other  hand,  they  assure  us  that  his  sub- 
jects have  at  each  instant  the  power 
and  the  liberty  to  disobey  him  and  an- 
nihilate his  designs  :  from  whence  it  is 
evident  that  all  the  religions  of  the 
world  destroy  with  one  hand  what  they 
establish  with  the  other :  so  that,  ac- 
cording to  the  ideas  with  which  they 
furnish  us,  their  God  is  neither  free, 
powerful,  nor  happy. 

llth.    "  The    supreme   cause  and 


OP   THE   EXISTENCE  OF   GOD. 


217 


author  of  things,  must  of  necessity  be 
infinitely  wise" 

Wisdom  and  folly  are  qualities 
founded  on  our  peculiar  judgment ; 
now  in  this  world,  which  God  is  sup- 
posed to  have  created,  to  preserve,  to 
move,  and  to  penetrate,  there  happens 
a  thousand  things,  which  appear  to  us 
as  follies,  and  even  the  creatures  for 
whom  we  imagine  the  universe  to  have 
been  made,  are  frequently  much  more 
foolish  and  irrational  than  prudent  and 
wise.  The  author  of  every  thing  which 
exists,  must  be  equally  the  author  of 
that  which  we  call  irrational,  and  of 
that  which  we  judge  to  be  extremely 
wise.  On  the  other  hand,  to  judge  of 
the  intelligence  and  the  wisdom  of  a 
being,  it  were  necessary,  at  least,  to 
foresee  the  end  which  he  proposes  to 
himself.  What  is  the  aim  of  God  ?  It 
is,  they  tell  us,  his  own  peculiar  glory  ; 
but  does  this  God  attain  this  end,  and 
do  not  sinners  refuse  to  glorify  him  ? 
Besides,  suppose  God  is  sensible  to 
glory,  is  not  this  supposing  him  to  have 
our  follies  and  our  weaknesses?  Is 
not  this  saying  he  is  haughty  ?  If  they 
tell  us  that  the  aim  of  the  divine  wis- 
dom is  to  render  men  happy,  I  shall  al- 
ways ask,  wherefore  these  men,  in  de- 
spite of  his  views,  so  frequently  ren- 
der themselves  miserable  ?  If  they  tell 
me,  the  views  of  God  are  impene- 
trable to  us,  I  shall  reply,  in  the  first 
place,  that  in  this  case  it  is  at  random 
that  they  tell  me  the  Divinity  proposes 
to  himself  the  happiness  of  his  crea- 
tures, an  object,  which,  in  fact,  is  never 
attained ;  I  shall,  in  the  second  place, 
reply,  that,  ignorant  of  his  real  aim,  it 
is  impossible  for  us  to  judge  of  his  wis- 
dom, and  that  to  be  willing  to  reason 
upon  it  shows  madness. 

12th.  "  The  supreme  cause  and  au- 
thor of  all  things,  must  of  necessity 
be  a  being  of  infinite  goodness,  justice, 
and  truth,  and  all  other  moral  perfec- 
tions;  such  as  become  the  supreme 
governor  and  judge  of  the  world." 

The  idea  of  perfection  is  an  abstract, 
metaphysical,  negative  idea,  which  has 
no  archetype,  or  model,  exterior  to  our- 
selves. A  perfect  being  would  be  a  be- 
ing similar  to  ourselves,  whom,  by 
thought,  we  should  divest  of  all  those 
qualities  which  we  find  prejudicial  to 
us,  and  which,  for  that  reason,  we  call 
imperfections  ;  it  is  always  relatively 

No.  VII.— 28 


to  ourselves,  and  to  our  mode  of  feel- 
ing and  of  thinking,  and  not  in  itself, 
that  a  th'ing  is  perfect  or  imperfect ;  it  is 
according  to  this,  that  a  thing  is  more  or 
less  useful  or  prejudicial,  agreeable  or 
disagreeable.  In  this  sense,  how  can  we 
attribute  perfection  to  the  self-existent 
being  1  Is  God  perfectly  good  rela- 
tively to  men  1  But  men  are  frequent- 
ly wounded  by  his  works,  and  are 
obliged  to  complain  of  the  evils,  which 
they  suffer  in  this  world.  Is  God  per- 
fect, relative  to  his  works  ?  But  do  we 
not  frequently  see  the  most  complete 
disorder,  range  itself  on  the  side  of 
order?  These  works  of  the  Divinity 
so  perfect,  are  they  not  changed,  are 
they  not  destroyed  unceasingly ;  do 
they  not  oblige  us  to  experience,  in  de- 
spite of  ourselves,  those  sorrows  and 
troubles  which  balance  the  pleasures 
and  the  benefits  which  we  receive  from 
nature?  Do  not  all  the  religions  of 
the  world  suppose  a  God  continually 
occupied  in  remaking,  repairing,  undo- 
ing, and  rectifying  his  marvellous 
works?  They  will  not  fail  telling  us, 
that  God  cannot  possibly  communicate 
to  his  works  that  perfection,  which  he 
himself  possesses.  In  this  case,  we 
shall  say,  that  the  imperfections  of  this 
world,  being  necessary  for  God  him- 
self, he  never  will  be  able  to  remedy 
them,  even  in  another  world ;  and  we 
shall  conclude,  that  this  God,  cannot 
be  to  us  of  any  utility  whatever. 

The  metaphysical  or  theological  at- 
tributes of  the  Divinity,  make  him  an 
abstract  and  inconceivable  being  as 
soon  as  they  distinguish  him  from  na- 
ture and  from  all  the  beings  which  she 
contains  :  the  moral  qualities  make  him 
a  being  of  the  human  species  although 
by  negative  attributes  it  is  endeavour- 
ed to  remove  him  to  a  distance  from 
man.  The  theological  God  is  an  in- 
sulated being,  who  in  truth  cannot  have 
any  relation  with  any  of  the  beings  of 
which  we  have  a  knowledge.  The 
moral  God  is  never  more  than  a  man 
who  is  believed  to  be  rendered  perfect, 
in  removing  from  him  by  thought,  the 
imperfections  of  human  nature.  The 
moral  qualities  of  men  are  founded 
upon  the  relations  between  them,  and 
upon  their  mutual  wants.  The  theo- 
logical God  cannot  certainly  have  mo- 
ral qualities,  or  human  perfactions ;  he 
has  no  occasion  for  men,  he  has  no  re- 


218 


EXAMINATION   OF   THE   PROOFS 


lation  with  them,  seeing  that  no  rela- 
tions can  exist  which  are  not  recipro- 
cal. A  pure  spirit  cannot  assuredly 
have  relations  with  material  beings,  at 
least  in  parts  ;  an  infinite  being  cannot 
be  susceptible  of  any  relation  with  in- 
finite beings  ;  an  eternal  being  cannot 
have  relations  with  perishable  and 
transitory  beings.  The  one  being  who 
has  neither  species  nor  cause,  who  has 
no  fellow  creatures,  who  does  not  live 
in  society,  who  has  nothing  in  com- 
mon with  his  creatures,  if  he  really 
existed,  could  not  possess  any  of  those 
qualities,  which  we  call  perfections  ; 
he  would  be  of  an  order  so.  different 
from  man,  that  we  should  not  be  able 
to  assign  him  either  vices  or  virtaes. 
It  is  unceasingly  repeated  to  us,  that 
God  owes  us  nothing ;  that  no  beingis 
comparable  to  him ;  that  our  limited 
understand  ing  cannot  conceive  his  per- 
fections ;  that  the  human  mind  is  not 
formed  to  comprehend  his  essence  :  but 
do  they  no*,  even  by  this,  destroy  our 
relation  with  this  being,  so  dissimilar, 
so  disproportionate,  so  incomprehensi- 
ble to  us  ?  All  relation  supposes  a 
certain  analogy ;  all  duties  suppose  a 
resemblance,  and  reciprocal  wants,  to 
render  to  any  one  the  obligations  we 
owe  him,  it  is  necessary  to  have  a 
knowledge  of  him. 

They  will,  without  doubt,  tell  us,  that 
God  has  made  himself  known  by  re- 
velation. But  does  not  this  revelation 
suppose  the  existence  of  the  God  we  dis- 
pute 1  Does  not  this  revelation  itself 
destroy  the  moral  perfections,  which 
they  attribute  to  him  ?  Does  not  all 
revelation  suppose  in  men,  ignorance, 
imperfection,  and  perversity,  which  a 
beneficent,  wise,  omnipotent,  and  pro- 
vident God,  ought  to  have  prevented  ? 
Does  not  all  particular  revelation  sup- 
pose in  this  God  a  preference,  a  predi- 
lection, and  an  unjust  partiality  for 
some  of  his  creatures  ;  dispositions  that 
visibly  contradict  his  infinite  goodness 
and  justice  ?  Does  not  this  revelation 
announce  in  him  aversion,  hatred,  or  at 
least  indifference  for  the  greater  num- 
ber of  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  or 
even  a  fixed  design  of  blinding  them, 
in  order  that  they  may  lose  themselves  ? 
In  short,  in  all  the  known  revelations, 
is  not  the  Divinity,  instead  of  being  re- 
presented as  wise,  equitable,  and  filled 
with  tenderness  for  man,  continually 


depicted  to  us  as  a  fantastical,  iniqui- 
tous, and  a  cruel  being ;  as  one  who  is 
willing  to  seduce  his  children  ;  as  one 
who  is  laying  snares  for  them,  or  mak- 
ing tfiem  lay  snares  for  themselves : 
and  as  one  who  punishes  them  for  hav- 
ing fallen  into  them?  The  truth  is, 
the  God  of  Doctor  Clarke,  and  of  the 
Christians,  cannot  be  looked  upon  as 
a  perfect  being,  at  least,  if  in  theology 
they  do  not  call  those  qualities  perfec- 
tions, which  reason  and  good  sense 
call  striking  imperfections  or  odious  dis- 
positions. Nay  more,  there  are  not  in 
the  human  race  individuals  so  wicked, 
so  vindictive,  so  unjust,  so  cruel,  as' the 
tyrant  on  whom  the  Christians  prodi- 
gally lavish  their  servile  homage^'  and 
on  whom  their  theologians  heap  those 
perfections  which  the  conduct  they  as- 
cribe to  him  contradicts  every  moment. 
The  more  we  consider  the  theologi- 
cal God,  the  more  impossible  and  con- 
tradictory will  he  appear ;  theology 
seems  only  to  have  formed  him,  imme- 
diately to  destroy  him.  What  is  this, 
in  fact,  but  a  being  of  whom  they  can 
affirm  nothing  that  is  not  instantly  con- 
tradicted? What  is  this  but  a  good 
God  who  is  unceasingly  irritating  him- 
self; an  omnipotent  God  who  never 
arrives  at  the  end  of  his  designs  ;  a 
God  infinitely  happy,  whose  felicity  is 
perpetually  disturbed :  a  God  who  loves 
order,  and  who  never  maintains  it ;  a 
just  God  who  permjts  his  most  innocent 
subjects  to  be  exposed  to  continual  in- 
justice ?  What  is  this  but  a  pure  spirit 
who  creates  and  who  moves  matter  ? 
What  is  this  but  an  immutable  being 
who  is  the  cause  of  the  motion  and 
those  changes  which  are  each  moment 
operating  in  nature  ?  What  is  this  but 
an  infinite  being  who  is,  however,  co- 
existent with  the  universe  ?  What  is 
this  but  an  omniscient  being  who  be- 
lieves himself  obliged  to  make  trial  of 
his  creatures?  What  is  this  but  an 
omnipotent  being  who  never  can  com- 
municate to  his  works  that  perfection 
which  he  would  find  in  them  ?  What 
is  this  but  a  being  clothed  with  every 
divine  quality,  and  of  whom  the  con- 
duct is  always  human?  What  is  this  but 
a  being  who  is  able  to  do  every  thing. 
and  who  succeeds  in  nothing,  who 
never  acts  in  a  manner  worthy  of  him- 
self? Like  man,  he  is  wicked,  unjust, 
cruel,  jealous,  irascible,  and  vindictive  ; 


OF   THE   EXISTENCE   OF    GOD. 


219 


like  man,  he  miscarries  in  all  his  pro- 
jects ;  and  this  with  all  the  attributes 
capable  of  guarantying  him  from  the 
defects  of  our  species.  If  we  would 
but  be  ingenuous,  we  should  confess, 
that  this  being  is  nothing;  and  we  shall 
find  the  phantom  imagined  to  explain 
nature,  is  perpetually  in  contradiction 
with  this  very  nature,  and  that  instead 
of  explaining  any  thing,  it  only  serves 
to  throw  every  thing  into  perplexity 
and  confusion. 

According  to  Clarke  himself,  "  no- 
thing is  that  of  which  every  thing  can 
truly  be  denied,  and  nothing  can  tru- 
ly be  affirmed.  So  that  the  idea  of  no- 
thing, if  I  may  so  speak,  is  absolute- 
ly the  negation  of  all  ideas.  The 
idea,  therefore,  either  of  a  Jlnite  or 
infinite  nothing  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms."  Let  them  apply  this  principle 
to  what  our  author  has  said  of  the  Di- 
vinity, and  they  will  find  that  he  is  by 
his  own  confession,  an  infinite  nothing, 
since  the  idea  of  this  Divinity  istheaft- 
solute  negation  of  all  ideas  which 
men  are  capable  of  forming  to  them- 
selves. Spirituality  is  indeed  a  mere 
negation  of  corporeity ;  to  say  God  is 
spiritual,  is  it  not  affirming  to  us  that 
they  do  not  know  what  he  is  ?  They 
tell  us  there  are  substances  which  we 
can  neither  see  nor  touch,  but  which  do 
not  exist  the  less  on  that  account. 
Very  well,  but  then  we  can  neither  rea- 
son upon  them  nor  assign  them  quali- 
ties. Can  we  have  a  better  conception 
of  infinity  which  is  a  mere  negation  of 
those  limits  which  we  find  in  all  be- 
ings 1  Can  the  human  mind  compre- 
hend what  is  infinite,  and  in  order  to 
form  to  itself  a  kind  of  a  confused 
idea  is  it  not  obliged  to  join  limited 
quantities  to  other  quantities  which 
again  it  only  conceives  as  limited  ? 
Omnipotence,  eternity,  omniscience, 
and  perfection,  are  they  any  thing  else 
but  abstractions  or  mere  negations  of 
the  limitation  of  power,  of  duration, 
and  of  science  ?  If  it  is  pretended  that 
God  is  nothing  of  which  man  can  have 
a  knowledge,  can  see,  can  feel ;  if  no- 
thing can  be  said  positively,  it  is  at 
least  permitted  us  to  doubt  his  exis- 
tence ;  if  it  is  pretended  that  God  is 
what  our  theologians  describe  him,  we 
cannot  help  denying  the  existence  or 
the  possibility  of  a  being  who  is  made 
the  subject  of  those  qualities  which  the 


human  mind  will  never  be  able  to  con- 
ceive or  reconcile. 

According  to  Clarke,  "the  self-exist- 
ent being  must  be  a  most  simple,  un- 
changeable, incorruptiblebeing;  witli- 
out  parts,  figure,  motion,  divisibility, 
or  any  other  such  properties  as  we 
find  in  matter.  For  all  these  things 
do  plainly  and  necessarily  imply 
finiteness  in  their  very  notion,  and  are 
utterly  inconsistent  with  complete  in- 
jinity."  Indeed  !  and  is  it  possible  to 
form  any  true  notion  of  such  a  being  ? 
The  theologians  themselves  agree,  that 
men  cannot  have  a  complete  notion  of 
God ;  but  that  which  they  have  here 
presented  us,  is  not  only  incomplete, 
but  it  also  destroys  in  God  all  those 
qualities  upon  which  our  mind  is  capa- 
ble of  fixing  any  judgment.  Doctor 
Clarke  is  obliged  to  avow,  that,  "  as  to 
the  particular  manner  of  his  being 
infinite,  or  everywhere  present,  in 
opposition  to  the  manner  of  created 
things  being  present  in  such  or  such 
infinite  places ;  this  is  as  impossible 
for  our  finite  understandings  to  com- 
prehend or  explain,  as  it  is  for  us  to 
form  an  adequate  idea  of  infinity" 
But  what  is  this  but  a  being  which  no 
man  can  either  explain  or  comprehend  1 
It  is  a  chimera,  which,  if  it  existed, 
could  not  possibly  interest  man. 

Plato,  the  great  creator  of  chimeras, 
says  that  "  those  who  admit  nothing 
but  what  they  can  s?,e  and  feel,  are 
stupid  and  ignorant  beings,  who  re- 
fuse to  admit  the  reality  of  the  exist- 
ence of  invisible  things."  Our  theo- 
logians hold  the  same  language  to  us  : 
our  European  religions,  have  visibly 
been  infected  with  the  reveries  of  the 
Platonists,  which  evidently  are  no  more 
than  the  result  of  obscure  notions,  and 
of  the  unintelligible  metaphysics  of 
the  Egyptian  Chaldean,  and  Assyrian 
priests,  among  whom  Plato  drew  up  his 
pretended  philosophy.  Indeed,  if  philo- 
sophy consists  in  the  knowledge  of  na- 
ture, we  shall  be  obliged  to  agree,  that 
the  Platonic  doctrines  in  nowise  merit 
this  name,  seeing  that  he  has  only 
drawn  the  human  mind  from  the  con- 
templation of  visible  nature,  to  throw 
it  into  an  intellectual  world,  where  it 
finds  nothing  but  chimeras.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  this  fantastical  philosophy, 
which  regulates  all  our  opinions  at  pre- 
sent. Our  theologians,  still  guided  by 


220 


EXAMINATION  OF  THE  PROOFS 


the  enthusiasm  of  Plato,  discourse  with 
their  followers  only  of  spirits  ;  intel- 
ligent, incorporeal  substances ;  invis- 
ible powers;  angels ;  demons  of  mys- 
terious virtues ;  supernatural  effects  ; 
divine  inspiration  ;  innate  ideas,  &c., 
&c.*  To  believe  in  them,  our  senses 
are  entirely  useless ;  experience  is  good 
for  nothing,  imagination,  enthusiasm, 
fanaticism,  and  the  workings  of  fear, 
which  our  religions  prejudices  give 
birth  to  in  us,  are  celestial  inspira- 
tions, divine  warnings,  natural  senti- 
ments, which  we  ought  to  prefer  to 
reason,  to  judgment,  and  to  good  sense. 
After  having  imbued  us  from  our  in- 
fancy with  these  maxims,  so  proper  to 
hoodwink  us,  and  to  lead  us  astray,  it 
is  very  easy  for  them  to  make  us  admit 
the  greatest  absurdities  under  the  im- 
posing name  of  mysteries,  and  to  pre- 
vent us  from  examining  that  which 
they  tell  us  to  believe.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  we  shall  reply  to  Plato,  and  to 
all  those  doctors,  who,  like  him,  im- 
pose upon  us  the  necessity  of  believing 
that  which  we  cannot  comprehend, 
that  to  believe  a  thing  exists,  it  is  at 
least  necessary  to  have  some  idea  of 
it ;  that  this  idea  can  only  come  to  us 
by  the  medium  of  our  senses;  that 
every  thing  which  our  senses  do  not 
give  us  a  knowledge  of,  is  nothing  to 
us ;  that  if  there  is  an  absurdity  in  de- 
nying the  existence  of  that  which  we 


*  Whoever  will  take  the  trouble  to  read  the 
works  of  Plato  and  his  disciples,  such  as 
Proclus,  Jamblicus,  Plotinus,  &c.  will  find  in 
them  almost  all  the  doctrines  and  metaphy- 
sical subtilties  of  the  Christian  Theology. 
Moreover,  they  will  find  the  origin  of  the 
tymbols,  the  rites,  the  sacraments,  in  short,  of 
the  tlieurgy,  employed  in  Christian  worship, 
who,  as  well  in  their  religious  ceremonies  as 
in  their  doctrines,  have  done  no  more  than 
follow,  more  or  less  faithfully,  the  road  which 
had  been  traced  out  for  them  by  the  priests 
of  paganism.  Religious  follies  are  not  so  va- 
rious as  they  are  imagined. 

With  respect  to  the  ancientphilosophy,  with 
the  exception  of  that  of  Democritus  and  Epi- 
curus, it  was,  for  the  most  part,  a  true  Theo- 
sophy,  imagined  by  the  Egyptian  and  Assyrian 
priests :  Pythagoras  and  Plato  have  been  no 
more  than  theologians,  filled  with  enthusiasm, 
and  perhaps  with  knavery.  At  least,  we  find 
in  them  a  sacerdotal  and  mysterious  mind, 
which  will  always  indicate,  that  they  seek  to 
deceive, or  that  they  are  not  willing  men  should 
be  enlightened.  It  is  in  nature,  and  not  in  theo- 
logy, that  we  must  draw  up  an  intelligible  and 
true  philosophy. 


do  not  know,  there  is  extravagance  in 
assigning  to  it  unknown  qualities,  and 
that  there  is  stupidity  in  trembling  be- 
fore true  phantoms,  or  in  respecting  vain 
idols,  clothed  with  incompatible  quali- 
ties, which  our  imaginations  have  com- 
bined, without  ever  being  able  to  con- 
sult experience  and  reason. 

This  will  serve  as  a  reply  to  Doctor 
Clarke,  who  says :  "  How  weak  then, 
and  foolish  is  it  to  raise  objections 
against  the  being-  of  God  from  the  in- 
comprehensibleness  of  his  essence  ! — 
and  to  represent  it  as  a  strange  and  in- 
credible thing,  that  there  should  exist 
any  incorporeal  substance,  the  es- 
sence of  which  we  are  not  able  to 
comprehend  I"  He  had  said,  a  little 
higher :  "  There,  is  not  so  mean  and 
contemptible  a  plant  "or  animal  that 
does  not  confound  the  most  enlarged 
understanding  upon  earth :  nay,  even 
the  simplest  and  plainest  of  all  in- 
animate beings  have  their  essence  or 
substance  hidden  from  us  in  the  deep- 
est and  most  impenetrable  obscurity. 
How  weak  then,  and  foolish  it  is  to 
raise  objections  against  the  being  of 
God  from  the  incomprehensibleness 
of  his  essence  /" 

We  shall  reply  to  him,  first,  that  the 
idea  of  an  immaterial  substance  or  be- 
ing, without  extent,  is  only  an  absence 
of  ideas,  a  negation  of  extent,  and  that 
when  they  tell  us  a  being  is  not  mat- 
ter, they  speak  to  us  of  that  which  is 
not,  and  do  not  teach  us  that  which 
is;  and  that  in  saying  a  being  cannot 
act  upon  our  senses,  they  teach*  us  that 
we  have  no  means  of  assuring  oifr- 
selves  whether  he  exists  or  not. 

Secondly,  we  shall  confess,  without 
hesitation,  that  men  of  the  greatest 
genius,  are  not  acquainted  with  the 
essence  of  stones,  plants,  animals,  nor 
the  secret  springs  which  constitute 
some  and  which  make  others  vegetate 
or  act ;  but  that  at  least  we  see  them, 
that  our  senses  at  least  have  a  know- 
ledge of  them  in  some  respects ;  that 
we  can  perceive  some  of  their  effects, 
according  to  which  we  judge  them 
well  or  ill ;  whilst  our  senses  cannot 
compass,  on  any  side,  an  immaterial 
being,  and,  consequently,  cannot  fur- 
nish us  with  any  one  idea  of  it ;  such 
a  being  is  to  us  an  occult  quality,  or 
rather  a  being  of  the  imagination : 
if  we  are  ignorant  of  the  essence  or  of 


OP  THE   EXISTENCE  OF  GOD. 


221 


the  intimate  combination  of  the  most 
material  beings,  we  shall  at  least  dis- 
cover, with  the  help  of  experience, 
some  of  their  relations  with  ourselves : 
we  know  their  surface,  their  extent, 
their  form,  their  colour,  their  softness, 
and  their  hardness,  by  the  impressions 
which  they  make  on  us:  we  are  capa- 
ble of  distinguishing  them,  of  compar- 
ing them,  of  judging  of  them,  of  seeing 
them,  and  of  .flying  from  them,  accord- 
ing to  the  different  modes  in  which  we 
are  affected  by  them :  we  cannot  have 
the  same  knowledge  of  the  immaterial 
God,  nor  of  those  spirits,  of  whom 
men,  who  cannot  have  more  ideas  of 
them  than  other  mortals,  are  unceas- 
ingly talking  to  us. 

Thirdly,  we  have  a  knowledge  of 
modifications  in  ourselves  which  we 
call  sentiments,  thoughts,  will,  and 
passions ;  for  want  of  being  acquaint- 
ed with  our  own  peculiar  essence,  and 
the  energy  of  our  particular  organi- 
zation, we  attribute  these  effects  to  a 
concealed  cause,  and  one  distinguished 
from  ourselves  which  we  call  a  spiritual 
being,  because  it  appeared  they  acted 
differently  from  our  body :  nevertheless, 
reflection  proves  to  us  that  material  ef- 
fects can  only  emanate  from  a  material 
cause.  We  only  see  even  in  the  uni- 
verse, physical  and  material  effects, 
which  can  only  be  produced  by  an  an- 
alogous cause,  and  which  we  shall  at- 
tribute, not  to  a  spiritual  cause  of  which 
we  are  ignorant,  but  to  nature  itself, 
which  we  may  know  in  some  respects 
if  we  will  deign  to  meditate  with  at- 
tention. 

If  the  incomprehensibility  of  God 
is  not  a  reason  lor  denying  his  exist- 
ence, it  is  not  one  to  establish  that  he  is 
immaterial,  and  we  shall  yet  less  com- 
prehend him  as  spiritual  than  as  ma- 
terial, since  materiality  is  a  known 
quality,  and  spirituality  is  an  occult  or 
unknown  quality,  or  rather  a  mode  of 
speaking  of  which  we  avail  ourselves 
only  to  throw  a  veil  over  our  ignorance. 
It  would  be  bad  reasoning  in  a  man  born 
blind,  if  he  denied  the  existence  of 
colours,  although  these  colours  can 
have  no  relation  with  the  senses  in  the 
absence  of  sight,  but  merely  with  those 
who  have  it  in  their  power  to  see  and 
know  them  ;  this  blind  man,  however, 
would  appear  perfectly  ridiculous,  if 
he  undertook  to  define  "them.  If  there 


were  beings  who  had  real  ideas  of 
God  and  of  a  pure  spirit,  and  our  the- 
ologians should  thence  undertake  to 
define  them,  they  would  be  just  as  ri- 
diculous as  the  blind  man. 

We  are  repeatedly  told  that  our 
senses  only  show  us  the  external  things, 
that  our  limited  senses  are  not  able  to 
conceive  a  God ;  we  agree  therein,  but 
these  same  senses  do  not  even  show 
us  the  external  of  this  Divinity  that 
our  theologians  would  define  to  us,  to 
whom  they  ascribe  attributes  upon 
Avhichthey  unceasingly  dispute,  though 
even  to  this  time  they  are  not  come  to 
the  proof  of  his  existence.  "  I  greatly 
esteem,"  says  Locke,  "  all  those  who 
faithfully  defend  their  opinion ;  but 
there  are  so  few  persons  who  after 
the  manner  they  do  defend  them,  ap- 
pear fully  convinced  of  the  opinionn 
they  profess,  that  I  am  tempted  to 
believe  there  are  more  sceptics  in  the 
world  than  are  generally  imagined"* 

Abbadie  tells  us,  that  '•'•the  ques- 
tion is,  whether  there  be  a  God,  and. 
not  what  this  God  is."  But  how  as- 
sure ourselves  of  the  existence  of  a 
being  concerning  which  we  shall  never 
be  able  to  have  a  knowledge  1  If  they 
do  not  tell  us  what  this  being  is,  how 
shall  we  feel  ourselves  capacitated  to 
judge  whether  or  not  his  existence  be 
possible?  We  have  seen  the  ruinous 
foundation  upon  which  men  have  hith- 
erto erected  the  phantom  created  by 
their  imagination ;  we  have  examined 
the  proofs  of  which  they  avail  them- 
selves to  establish  his  existence;  we 
have  pointed  out  the  numberless  con- 
tradictions which  result  from  those 
irreconcilable  qualities  with  which  they 
pretend  to  decorate  htm.  What  con- 
clusion must  we  draw  from  all  this, 
except  that  he  does  not  exist  ?  It  is 
true,  they  assure  us,  there  are  no  con- 
tradictions between  the  divine  attri- 
butes, but  there  is  a  disproportion  be- 
tween our  understanding  and  the 
nature  of  the  Supreme  being:  This 
granted,  what  standard  is  it  necessary 
man  should  possess  to  enable  him  to 
judge  of  his  God  ?  Are  not  they  men, 
who  have  imagined  this  being,  and 
who  have  clothed  him  with  attributes 
ascribed  him  by  themselves?  'If  it 


*  See  his  Familiar  Letter*.  HOBBKS  says, 
that  if  men  found  their  interest  in  it,  they 
would  doubt  the  truth  of  Euclid '»  Element*. 


222 


EXAMINATION  OF  THE  PROOFS 


needs  an  infinite  mind  to  comprehend 
the  Divinity,  can  the  theologians  boast 
of  being  themselves  in  a  capacity  to 
conceive  him?  To  what  purpose  then 
do  they  speak  of  him  to  others  ?  Man 
who  will  never  be  an  infinite  being, 
will  he  be  more  capable  of  conceiving 
his  God  in  a  future  world?  than  he  is 
in  the  one  which  he  at  this  day  inha- 
bits? If  hitherto  we  have  no  know- 
ledge of  God,  we  can  never  natter  our- 
selves with  obtaining  it  hereafter,  see- 
ing that  we  shall  never  be  Gods. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  pretended  that  it 
is  necessary  to  know  this  God ;  but 
how  prove  the  necessity  of  having  a 
knowledge  of  that  which  is  impossible 
to  be  known  ?  We  are  then  told,  that 
good  sense  and  reason  are  sufficient  to 
convince  us  of  the  existence  of  a  God. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  am  I  not  told 
that  reason  is  a  treacherous  guide  in 
religious  matters  ?  Let  them  at  least 
show  us  the  precise  time  when  we 
must  abandon  this  reason,  which  shall 
have  conducted  us  to  the  knowledge 
of  God.  Shall  we  consult  it  again, 
when  there  shall  be  a  question  to  ex- 
amine whether  what  they  relate  of  this 
God  is  probable,  if  he  can  unite  the 
discordant  qualities  which  they  ascribe 
to  him,  if  he  has  spoken  the  language 
which  they  have  attributed  to  him  ? 
Our  priests  never  will  permit  us  to 
consult  reason  upon  these  things ;  they 
will  still  pretend  that  we  ought  blindly 
to  believe  that  which  they  tell  us,  and 
that  the  most  certain  way  is  to  submit 
ourselves  to  that  which  they  have 
thought  proper  to  decide  on  the  nature 
of  a  being,  concerning  whom  they 
avow  they  are  ignorant,  and  who  is  in 
nowise  within  the  reach  of  mortals. 
Besides,  our  reason  cannot  conceive 
infinity,  therefore  it  cannot  convince 
us  of  the  existence  of  a  God  ;  and  if 
our  priests  have  a  more  sublime  reason 
than  that  which  is  found  in  us,  it  will 
be  then  on  the  words  of  our  priests 
that  we  shall  believe  in  God ;  we  shall 
never  be  ourselves  perfectly  convin- 
ced :  intimate  conviction  can  only  be  the 
effect  of  evidence  and  demonstration. 

A  thing  is  demonstrated  to  be  im- 
possible, not  only  as  soon  as  we  are 
incapable  of  having  true  ideas  of  it, 
but  also  Avhenever  the  ideas  we  can 
form  of  it  contradict  themselves,  de- 
stroy themselves,  and  are  repugnant  to 


one  another.  We  can  have  no  true  ideas 
of  a  spirit ;  the  ideas  we  are  able  to 
form  of  it  are  contradictory,  when  we 
say  that  a  being,  destitute  of  organs 
and  of  extent,  can  feel,  can  think,  can 
have  will  or  desires.  The  theological 
God  cannot  act :  it  is  repugnant  to  his 
divine  essence  to  have  human  qualities ; 
and  if  we  suppose  these  qualities  infi- 
nite, they  will  only  be  more  unintelli- 
gible, and  more  difficult  or  impossible 
to  be  reconciled. 

If  God  is  to  the  human  species  what 
colours  are  to  the  man  born  blind,  this 
God  has  no  existence  with  relation  to  us ; 
if  it  is  said  that  he  unites  the  qualities 
which  are  assigned  to  him,  this  God  is 
impossible.  If  we  are  blind,  let  us 
not  reason  either  upon  God  or  upon 
his  colours ;  let  us  not  ascribe  to  him 
attributes ;  let  us  not  occupy  ourselves 
with  him.  The  theologians  are  blind 
men,  who  would  explain  to  others, 
who  are  also  blind,  the  shades  and  the 
colours  of  a  portrait  representing  an 
original  which  they  have  not  even 
stumbled  upon  in  the  dark.*  Let  us 
not  be  told  then  that  the  original,  the 
portrait,  and  his  colours  do  not  exist 
the  less,  because  the  blind  man  can- 
not explain  them  to  us  nor  form  to 
himself  an  idea  of  them,  by  the  evi- 
dence of  those  men  who  enjoy  the 
faculty  of  sight ;  but  where  are  those 
quicksighted  mortals  who  have  seen 
the  Divinity,  who  have  a  better  know- 
ledge of  him  than  ourselves,  and  who 
have  the  right  to  convince  us  of  his 
existence  ? 

Doctor  Clarke  tells  us,  it  is  sufficient 
that  the  attributes  of  God  mayoe  pos- 
sible, and  such  as  there  is  no  demon- 


*  I  find,  in  the  work  of  Doctor  Clarke,  a 
passage  of  Melchoir  Canus,  bishop  of  the  Ca- 
naries, which  could  be  opposed  to  all  the  theo- 
gians  m  the  world,  and  all  their  arguments : 
Puderet  me  dicere  non  me  intelligere,  si  ipsi  in- 
telligerent  qui  tractarunt.  Heraclitus  said,  if 
it  were  demanded  of  a  blind  man  what  a  sight 
was,  he  would  reply  that  it  was  blindness. 
St.  Paul  announced  his  God  to  the  Athenians 
as  being  precisely  the  unknown  God  to  whom 
they  had  raised  an  altar.  St.  Denis,  the  areopa- 
gite,  says,  it  is  when  they  acknowledge  they 
do  not  know  God,  that  they  know  him  the  best. 
Tune  deum  maxime  cognoscimus,  cum  igno- 
rare  eum  cognoscimus.  It  is  upon  this  un- 
known God  that  all  theology  is  founded  !  It 
is  upon  this  unknown  God  that  they  reason 
unceasingly ! !  It  is  for  the  honour  of  this  un- 
known God,  that  they  cut  the  throats  of  men ! ! ! 


OP  THE   EXISTENCE  OP  GOD. 


223 


stration  to  the  contrary.  Strange  me- 
thod of  reasoning  !  Would  theology 
then  be  the  only  science  in  which  it 
was  permitted  to  conclude,  that  a  thing 
is,  as  soon  as  it  is  possible  to  be  ?  After 
having  brought  forward  reveries  with- 
out foundation,  and  propositions  which 
nothing  support,  has  he  quitted  them 
to  say  that  they  are  truths,  because  the 
contrary  cannot  be  demonstrated  ?-— 
Nevertheless  it  is  extremely  possible 
to  demonstrate  that  the  theological  God 
is  impossible ;  to  prove  it,  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  make  it  seen,  as  we  have  not 
ceased  to  do,  that  a  being  formed  by  the 
monstrous  combination  of  contrasts, 
the  most  offensive  to  reason,  cannot 
exist. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  always  insisted 
upon,  and  we  are  told  that  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  conceive  that  intelligence  or 
thought  can  be  properties  and  modifica- 
tions of  matter,  of  which,  however, 
Doctor  Clarke  avows  we  ignore  the 
energy  and  the  essence,  or  of  which 
he  has  said  that  men  of  the  greatest 
genius  have  had  but  superficial  or  in- 
complete ideas.  But  could  it  not  be 
asked  of  him  if  it  is  easier  to  conceive 
that  intelligence  and  thought  may  be 
properties  of  spirit,  of  which  we  have 
certainly  far  less  ideas  than  we  have 
of  matter?  If  we  have  only  obscure 
and  imperfect  ideas  of  the  most  sensi- 
ble and  gross  bodies,  should  we  be  able 
to  have  a  more  distinct  knowledge  of 
an  immaterial  substance,  or  of  a  spirit- 
ual God,  who  does  not  act  upon  any 
one  of  our  senses,  and  who  if  he  did 
act  upon  them,  would  cease  from 
thence  to  be  immaterial  ? 

Doctor  Clarke  has  no  foundation  for 
telling  us  that  "  immaterial  substan- 
ces are  not  impossible ;"  or  that  "  a 
substance  immaterial  is  not  a  contra- 
dictory notion.  Now  whoever  asserts 
that  it  is  contradictory,  must  affirm 
that  whatever  is  not  matter  is  no- 
thing." Every  thing  that  acts  upon  our 
senses,  is  matter;  a  substance  desti- 
tute of  extent  or  of  the  properties  of 
matter  cannot  make  itself  felt  by  us, 
nor  consequently  give  us  perceptions 
or  ideas :  constituted  as  we  are,  that 
of  which  we  have  no  ideas  has  no  ex- 
istence with  relation  to  us.  Thus, 
there  is  no  absurdity  in  maintaining 
that  all  which  is  not  matter  is  nothing ; 
on  the  contrary,  this  is  a  truth  so  stri- 


king, that  there  is  nothing  short  of  the 
most  inveterate  prejudice  or  knavery 
that  can  doubt  or  deny  it. 

Our  learned  adversary  does  not  re- 
move the  difficulty  in  asking:  "Are 
our  Jive  senses,  by  an  absolute  neces- 
sity in  the  nature  of  the  thing,  all  and 
the  only  possible  ways  of  perception  ? 
And  is  it  impossible  and  contradic- 
tory there  should  be  any  being  in  the 
universe  endued  with  ways  of  percep- 
tion different  from  those  which  are 
the  result  of  our  present  composition  ? 
Or,  are  these  things,  on  the  contrary, 
purely  arbitrary ;  and  the  same  pow- 
er that  gave  us  these  may  have  given 
others  to  other  beings,  and  might,  if 
he  had  pleased,  have  given  to  us  others 
in  this  present  state  ?"  I  reply,  first, 
that  before  we  presume  what  God  can 
or  cannot  do,  it  were  necessary  to  have 
proved  his  existence.  I  reply  also,  that 
we  have  in  fact  but  five  senses  ;*  that  by 
their  aid  it  is  impossible  for  man  to 
conceive  such  a  being  as  they  suppose 
the  theological  God  to  be ;  that  we  are 
absolutely  ignorant  what  would  be  the 
extent  of  our  conception  if  we  had 
more  senses.  Thus  to  demand  what 
God  could  have  done  in  such  a  case, 
is  also  to  suppose  the  thing  in  ques- 
tion, seeing  that  we  cannot  have  a 
knowledge  how  far  can  go  the  power 
of  a  being  of  which  we  have  no  idea. 
We  have  no  more  knowledge  of  that 
which  angels,  beings  different  from 
ourselves,  intelligences  superior  to  us, 
can  feel  and  know.  We  are  ignorant 
of  the  mode  in  which  plants  vegetate ; 
how  should  we  know  any  thing  of  be- 
ings of  an  order  entirely  distinguished 
from  our  own  ?  At  least  we  can  rest 
assured  that  if  God  is  infinite,  as  it  is 
said  he  is,  neither  the  angels  nor  any 
subordinate  intelligence  can  conceive 
him.  If  man  is  an  enigma  to  himself, 
how  should  he  be  able  to  comprehend 
that  which  is  not  himself?  It  is  ne- 
cessary then  that  we  confine  ourselves 


*  The  theologians  frequently  speak  to  us 
of  an  intimate  sense,  of  a  natural  instinct,  by 
the  aid  of  which  we  discover  or  feel  the  di- 
vinity and  the  pretended  truths  of  religion. 
But  if  we  only  examine  these  things,  we  shall 
find  that  this  intimate  sense  and  this  instinct 
are  no  more  than  the  effects  of  habit,  of  en- 
thusiasm, of  inquietude,  and  of  prejudice, 
which,  frequently  in  despite  of  all  reason,  lead 
us  back  to  prejudices  which  our  mind,  when 
tranquil,  cannot  but  reject. 


224 


EXAMINATION   OF  THE   PROOFS 


to  judge  with  the  five  senses  we  have. 
A  blind  man  has  only  the  use  of 
four  senses ;  he  has  not  the  right  of 
denying  that  there  does  exist  an  extra 
sense  for  others  ;  but  he  can  say,  with 
truth  and  reason,  that  he  has  no  idea 
of  the  effects  which  would  be  produced 
with  the  sense  which  he  lacks.  It  is 
with  these  five  senses  that  we  are  re- 
duced to  judge  of  the  Divinity  which 
no  one  amongst  the  theologians  can 
show  us,  or  see  better  than  ourselves. 
Would  not  a  blind  man,  surrounded 
with  other  men  devoid  of  sight,  be  au- 
thorized to  demand  of  them  by  what 
right  they  spoke  to  him  of  a  sense 
which  they  themselves  did  not  possess, 
or  of  a  being  upon  which  their  own 
peculiar  experience  taught  them  no- 
thing ?* 

In  short,  we  can  again  reply  to  Doc- 
tor Clarke,  that,  according  to  his  sys- 
tem, the  supposition  is  impossible,  and 
ought  not  to  be  made,  seeing  that  God 
having,  according  to  himself,  made 
man,  was  willing,  without  doubt,  that 
he  should  have  no  more  than  five 
senses,  or  that  he  was  what  he  actually 
is,  because  it  was  necessary  that  he 
should  be  thus  to  conform  to  the  wise 
views  and  to  the  immutable  designs 
which  theology  gives  him. 

Doctor  Clarke,  as  well  as  all  other 
theologians,  found  the  existence  of  their 
God  upon  the  necessity  of  a  power 
that  may  have  the  ability  to  begin  mo- 
tion. But  if  matter  has  always  exist- 
ed, it  has  always  had  motion,  which  as 
we  have  proved,  is  as  essential  to  it  as 
its  extent,  and  flows  from  its  primitive 
properties.  There  is,  then,  motion  only 
in  matter,  and  mobility  is  a  conse- 
quence of  its  existence ;  not  that  the 
great  whole  can  itself  occupy  other 
parts  of  space  than  those  which  it  ac- 
tually occupies,  but  its  parts  can  change, 
and  do  change  continually  their  re- 
spective situations ;  it  is  from  thence 
results  the  conservation  and  the  life  of 
nature,  which  is  always  immutable  in 
its  whole.  But  in  supposing,  as  is 
done  every  day,  that  matter  is  inert, 

*  In  supposing,  as  the  theologians  dp,  that 
God  imposes  upon  men  the  necessity  of 
knowing  him,  their  pretension  appears  as  irra- 
tional as  would  be  the  idea  of  a  landholder  to 
whom  they  should  ascribe  the  whim  that  the 
ants  of  his  garden  could  know  him  and  might 
reason  pertinently  upon  him. 


that  is  to  say,  incapable  of  producing: 
any  thing  by  itself  without  the  assist- 
ance of  a  moving  power  which  gives- 
it  motion,  can  we  ever  conceive  that 
material  nature  receives  its  motion 
from  a  power  that  has  nothing  mate- 
rial ?  Can  man  really  figure  to  him- 
self that  a  substance,  which  has  no 
one  of  the  properties  of  matter,  can 
create  matter,  draw  it  from  its  own 
peculiar  source,  arrange  it,  penetrate  it, 
direct  its  motion,  and  guide  its  course? 

Motion,  then,  is  coeternal  with  mat- 
ter. From  all  eternity  the  particles  of  the 
universe  have  acted  one  upon  the  other 
in  virtue  of  their  energies,  of  their  pe- 
culiar essences,  of  their  primitive  ele- 
ments, and  of  their  various  combina- 
tions. These  particles  must  have  com- 
bined in  consequence  of  their  analogy 
or  relations,  attracted  and  repelled  each, 
other,  have  acted  and  reacted,  gravi- 
tated one  upou  the  other,  been  united 
and  dissolved,  received  their  forms,  and 
been  changed  by  their  continual  collis- 
ions. In  a  material  world,  the  acting- 
power  must  be  material ;  in  a  whole, 
of  which  the  parts  are  essentially  in 
motion,  there  is  no  occasion  for  an  act- 
ing power  distinguished  from  itself; 
the  whole  must  be  in  perpetual  motion 
by  its  own  peculiar  energy.  The  gen- 
eral motion,  as  we  have  elsewhere  prov- 
ed, has  its  birth  from  the  particular 
motions  which  beings  communicate  to 
each  other  without  interruption. 

We  see,  then,  that  theology,  in  sup- 
posing a  God  who  gives  motion  to  na- 
ture, and  who  was  distinguished  from 
it,  has  done  no  more  than  multiply  be- 
ings, or  rather  has  only  personified  the 
principle  of  mobility  inherent  in  mat- 
ter :  in  giving  to  this  principle  human 
qualities,  it  has  only  lent  its  intelli- 
gence, thought — perfections  which  can 
in  nowise  be  suitable  to  it.  Every 
thing  which  Doctor  Clarke,  and  all  the 
modern  theologians,  tell  us'  of  their 
God,  becomes,  in  some  respects,  suffi- 
ciently intelligible  as  soon  as  we  apply 
it  to  nature  and  to  matter ;  it  is  eter- 
nal, that  is  to  say,  it  cannot  have  had 
a  commencement,  and  it  will  never 
have  an  end;  it  is  infinite,  that  is 
to  say,  we  have  no  conception  of  its 
limits,  &c.  But  human  qualities,  al- 
ways borrowed  from  ourselves,  cannot 
be  suitable  to  it,  seeing  that  these  quali- 
ties are  modes  of  being,  or  modes  which 


OF   THE  EXISTENCE   OP   GOD. 


225 


only  belong  to  particular  beings,  and 
not  to  the  whole  which  contains  them. 

Thus,  to  resume  the  answers  which 
have  been  given  to  Doctor  Clarke,  we 
shall  say,  first,  we  can  conceive  that 
matter  has  existed  from  all  eternity, 
seeing  that  we  cannot  conceive  it  to 
have  had  a  beginning.  Secondly,  that 
matter  is  independent,  seeing  there  is 
nothing  exterior  to  it ;  that  it  is  immu- 
table, seeing  it  cannot  change  its  na- 
ture, although  it  is  unceasingly  chang- 
ing its  form  or  combination.  Thirdly, 
that  matter  is  self-existent ;  since,  not 
being  able  to  conceive  that  it  can  be 
annihilated,  we  cannot  conceive  it  can 
possibly  have  commenced  to  exist. — 
Fourthly,  that  we  do  not  know  the  es- 
sence or  true  nature  of  matter,  although 
we  have  a  knowledge  of  some  of  its 
properties  and  qualities  according  to 
the  mode  in  which  it  acts  upon  us ; 
this  is  what  we  cannot  say  of  God. 
Fifthly,  that  matter,  not  having  had  a 
beginning,  will  never  have  an  end, 
although  its  combinations  and  its 
forms  have  a  commencement  and  an 
end.  Sixthly,  that  if  all  which  exists, 
or  every  thing  that  our  mind  can  con- 
ceive, is  matter,  this  matter  is  infinite ; 
that  is  to  say,  cannot  be  limited  by  any 
thing ;  that  it  is  omnipresent,  if  there 
is  no  place  exterior  to  itself ;  indeed, 
if  there  was  a  place  exterior  to  it,  this 
would  be  a  vacuum,  and  then  God 
would  be  the  vacuum.  Seventhly,  that 
nature  is  only  one,  although  its  ele- 
ments or  its  parts  may  be  varied  to  in- 
finity, and  indued  with  properties  ex- 
tremely different.  Eighthly,  that  mat- 
ter, arranged,  modified,  and  combined, 
in  a  certain  mode,  produces  in  some 
beings,  that  which  we  call  intelligence ; 
it  is  one  of  its  modes  of  being,  but  it 
is  not  one  of  its  essential  properties. 
Ninthly,  that  matter  is  not  a  free  agent, 
since  it  cannot  act  otherwise  than  it 
does  in  virtue  of  the  laws  of  its  nature, 
or  of  its  existence,  and  consequently, 
that  heavy  bodies  must  necessarily 
fall,  light  bodies  must  rise,  fire  must 
burn ;  man  must  feel  good  and  evil, 
according  to  the  nature  of  the  beings 
of  which  he  experiences  the  action. 
Tenthly,  that  the  power  or  the  energy 
of  matter  has  no  other  bounds  than 
those  which  are  prescribed  by  its  own 
nature.  Eleventhly,  that  wisdom,  jus- 
tice, goodness,  &c.  are  qualities  pecu- 

No.  VIII.— 29 


liar  to  matter  combined  and  modified 
as  it  is  found  in  some  beings  of  the 
human  species,  and  that  the  idea  of 
perfection  is  an  abstract,  negative, 
metaphysical  idea,  or  a  mode  of  con- 
sidering objects  which  supposes  no- 
thing real  to  be  exterior  to  ourselves. 
In  fine,  twelfthly,  that  matter  is  the 
principle  of  motion,  which  it  contains 
within  itself,  since  matter  only  is  capa- 
ble of  giving  and  receiving  motion  : 
this  is  what  cannot  be  conceived  of  an 
immaterial  and  simple  being,  destitute 
of  partsj|  who,  devoid  of  extent,  of 
mass,  of  weight,  cannot  either  move 
himself,  or  move  other  bodies — much 
less,  create, produce,  and  preserve  them. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Examination  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence 
of  God  given  by  Descartes,  Malebranche, 
Newton,  <f-c. 

GOD  is  incessantly  spoken  of,  and 
yet  no  one  has  hitherto  arrived  at  de- 
monstrating his  existence ;  the  most 
sublime  geniuses  have  been  obliged  to 
run  aground  against  this  rock;  the 
most  enlightened  men  have  done  no 
more  than  stammer  upon  a  matter 
which  every  one  concurred  in  consider- 
ing the  most  important ;  as  if  it  could 
be  necessary  to  occupy  ourselves  with 
objects  inaccessible  to  our  senses,  and 
of  which  our  mind  cannot  take  any 
hold! 

To  the  end  that  we  may  convince 
ourselves  of  the  little  solidity  which 
the  greatest  men  have  given  to  those 
proofs  by  which  they  have  successively 
imagined  to  establish  the  existence  of 
God,  let  us  briefly  examine  what  the 
most  celebrated  philosophers  have  said ; 
and  let  us  begin  with  Descartes,  the  re- 
storer of  modern  philosophy.  This 
great  man  himself  tells  us  :  "  All  the 
strength  of  argument  which  I  have 
hitherto  used  to  prove  the  existence  of 
God.  consists  in  this,  that  I  acknow- 
ledge it  would  not  be  possible  my  na- 
ture was  such  as  it  is,  that  is  to  say,  that 
I  should  have  in  me  the  idea  of  a  God, 
if  God  did  not  truly  exist ;  this  same 
God,  I  say,  of  whom  the  idea  is  in  me, 
that  is  to  say,  who  possesses  all  those 
high  perfections  of  which  our  mind  can 
have  some  slight  idea,  without,  how- 


226 


EXAMINATION   OF  THE   PROOFS 


ever,  being  able  to  comprehend  them." 
See  Meditation  III.,  upon  the  Exist- 
ence of  God,  p.  71-2. 

He  had  said,  a  little  before,  page  69 : 
"  We  must  necessarily  conclude  from 
this  alone,  that  because  I  exist  and 
have  the  idea  of  a  most  perfect  being, 
that  is  to  say,  of  God,  the  existence  of 
God  is  most  evidently  demonstrated." 

First,  we  reply  to  Descartes,  that  we 
have  no  right  to  conclude  that  the 
thing  exists  because  we  have  an  idea 
of  it ;  our  imagination  presents  to  us 
the  idea  of  a  sphynx  or  of  a  Hippogriff, 
without  having  the  right  from  that  cir- 
cumstance to  conclude  that  these  things 
really  exist. 

Secondly,  we  say  to  Descartes,  that  it 
is  not  possible  he  should  have  a  posi- 
tive and  true  idea  of  God,  of  whom,  as 
well  as  the  theologians,  he  would 
prove  the  existence.  It  is  impossible 
for  men,  for  material  beings,  to  form 
to  themselves  a  real  and  true  idea  of  a 
spirit ;  of  a  substance  destitute  of  ex- 
tent; of  an  incorporeal  being,  acting 
upon  nature,  which  is  corporeal  and 
material ;  a  truth  which  we  have  al- 
ready sufficiently  proved. 

Thirdly,  we  shall  say  to  him,  that  it 
is  impossible  man  should  have  any 
positive  and  real  idea  of  perfection,  of 
infinity,  of  immensity,  and  of  the  other 
attributes  which  theology  assigns  to 
the  Divinity.  We  shall  then  make  the 
same  reply  to  Descartes,  which  we 
have  already  made  in  the  preceding 
chapter  to  the  twelfth  proposition  of 
Doctor  Clarke. 

Thus  nothing  is  less  conclusive  than 
the  proofs  upon  which  Descartes  rests 
the  existence  of  God.  He  makes  of 
this  God  thought  and  intelligence ;  but 
how  conceive  intelligence  or  thought, 
without  a  subject  to  which  these  quali- 
ties may  adhere?  Descartes  pretends 
that  we  cannot  conceive  God,  but  "  as 
a  power  which  applies  itself  succes- 
sively to  the  parts  of  the  universe." 
He  again  says,  that  "  God  cannot  be 
said  to  have  extent  but  as  we  say  of 
fire  contained  in  a  piece  of  iron, 
which  has  not,  properly  speaking, 
any  other  extension  than  that  of  the 
iron  itself."  But,  according  to  these 
notions,  we  have  the  right  to  tax  him 
with  announcing  in  a  very  clear  man- 
ner, that  there  is  no  other  God  than 
nature ;  this  is  a  pure  Spinosism.  In 


fact,  we  know  that  it  is  from  the  prin- 
ciples of  Descartes  that  Spinosa  drew 
up  his  system,  which  flows  from  them 
necessarily. 

We  might,  then,  with  great  reason, 
accuse  Descartes  of  atheism,  seeing 
that  he  destroys  in  a  very  effectual 
manner  the  feeble  proofs  which  he 
gives  of  the  existence  of  a  God.  We 
have  then  foundation  for  saying  to  him 
that  his  system  overturns  the  idea  of 
the  creation.  Indeed,  before  God  had 
created  matter,  he  could  not  co-exist 
nor  be  co-extended  with  it ;  and  in  this 
case  according  to  Descartes,  there  was 
no  God ;  seeing  that  by  taking  from 
the  modifications  their  subject,  these 
modifications  must  themselves  disap- 
pear. If  God,  according  to  the  Carte- 
sians, is  nothing  but  nature,  they  are 
quite  Spinosians  ;  if  God  is  the  mo- 
tive-power of  this  nature,  if  God  no 
longer  exists  by  himself,  he  exists  no 
longer  than  the  subject  to  which  he 
is  inherent  subsists ;  that  is  to  say,, 
nature,  of  which  he  is  the  motive- 
power.  Thus,  God  no  longer  exists 
by  himself,  he  will  only  exist  as  long 
as  the  nature  which  he  moves ;  with- 
out matter,  or  without  a  subject  to 
move,  to  conserve,  to  produce,  what 
will  become  of  the  motive-power  of 
the  universe  ?  If  God  is  this  motive- 
power,  what  will  become  of  him  with- 
out a  world,  in  which  he  can  make  use 
of  his  action?* 

We  see,  then,  that  Descartes,  far 
from  establishing  on  a  solid  foundation 
the  existence  of  a  God,  totally  destroys 
him.  The  same  thing  will  happen 
necessarily  to  all  those  who  shall  rea- 
son upon  him;  they  finish  always  by 
confuting  him,  and  by  contradicting 
themselves.  We  shall  find  the  same 
want  of  just  inference,  and  the  same 
contradictions,  in  the  principles  of  the 
celebrated  father  Malebranche,  which, 
if  considered  with  the  slightest  atten- 
tion, appear  to  conduct  us  directly  to- 
Spinosism ;  indeed,  what  can  be  more 
conformable  to  the  language  of  Spino- 
sa, than  to  say,  that  "  the  universe  is 
only  an  emanation  from  God ;  that 
we  see  every  thing  in  God ;  that  every 
thing  which  we  see  is  only  God  ;  that 


*  See  The  Impious  Man  Convinced,  or  a 
Dissertation  against  Spinosa,  page  115,  andi 
sequel.  Amsterdam,  1685. 


OF   THE   EXISTENCE  OP   GOD. 


227 


God  alone  does  every  thing  that  is 
done;  tliat  all  the  action,  and  every 
operation  which  takes  place  in  all 
nature,  is  himself;  in  a  word,  that 
God  is  every  being,  and  the  only 
being  ?" 

Is  not  this  formally  saying  that  na- 
ture is  God?  Besides,  at  the  same 
time  that  Malebranche  assures  us  we 
see  every  thing  in  God,  he  pretends, 
that  "  it  is  not  yet  clearly  demonstra- 
ted that  matter  and  bodies  have  exist- 
ence, and  that  faith  alone  teaches  us 
these  mysteries,  of  which,  without  it, 
we  should  not  have  any  knowledge 
whatever."  In  reply,  it  may  be  rea- 
sonably asked  of  him,  how  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  who  has  created  matter, 
can  be  demonstrated^  if  the  existence 
of  this  matter  itself  is  yet  a  problem? 

Malebranche  himself  acknowledges 
that  we  can  have  no  precise  demon- 
stration of  the  existence  of  any  other 
being  than  of  that  which  is  necessary ; 
he  adds,  that  "  if  it  be  closely  examin- 
ed, it  will  be  seen  that  it  is  not  even 
possible  to  know,  with  certitude,  if 
God  be  or  be  not  truly  the  creator  of 
a  material  and  sensible  world."  Af- 
ter these  notions,  it  is  evident,  that 
according  to  Father  Malebranche,  men 
have  only  their  faith  to  guaranty  the 
existence  of  God;  but  faith  itself  sup- 
poses this  existence ;  if  it  be  not  cer- 
tain that  God  exists,  how  shall  we  be 
persuaded  that  we  must  believe  that 
which  it  is  reported  he  says  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  these  notions  of 
Malebranche  evidently  overturn  all  the- 
ological doctrines.  How  can  the  lib- 
erty of  man  be  reconciled  with  the 
idea  of  a  God  who  is  the  motive-power 
of  all  nature  ;  who  immediately  moves 
matter  and  bodies ;  without  whose  con- 
sent nothing  is  done  in  the  universe ; 
who  predetermines  the  creatures  to  eve- 
ry thing  which  they  do?  How  can  they, 
with  this  belief,  pretend  that  human 
souls  have  the  faculty  of  forming 
thoughts,  wills ;  of  moving  and  of  modi- 
fying themselves  ?  If  it  be  supposed, 
with  the  theologians,  that  the  conser- 
vation of  his  creatures  is  a  continued 
creation,  is  it  not  God  who,  in  preser- 
ving them,  enables  them  to  commit 
evil?  It  is  evident,  that,  according  to 
the  system  of  Malebranche,  God  does 
every  thing,  and  that  his  creatures  are 
no  more  than  passive  instruments  in 


his  hands  ;  their  sins,  as  well  as  their 
virtues,  appertain  to  him ;  men  can 
neither  have  merit  nor  demerit ;  this 
is  what  annihilates  all  religion.  It  is 
thus  that  theology  is  perpetually  occu- 
pied with  destroying  itself.* 

Let  us  now  see  if  the  immortal 
Newton  will  give  us  ideas  more  true, 
and  proofs  more  certain,  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  This  man,  whose  ex- 
tensive genius,  has  unravelled  nature 
and  its  laws  has  bewildered  himself 
as  soon  as  he  lost  sight  of  them;  a 
slave  to  the  prejudices  of  his  infancy, 
he  has  not  had  the  courage  to  hold  the 
flambeau  of  his  enlightened  under- 
standing up  to  the  chimera  which  they 
have  gratuitously  associated  with  na- 
ture ;  he  has  not  allowed  that  its  own 
peculiar  powers  were  sufficient  for  it 
to  produce  all  those  phenomena  which 
he  has  himself  so  happily  explained. 
In  short,  the  sublime  Newton  is  no 
more  than  an  infant,  when  he  quits 
physics  and  demonstration,  to  lose 
himself  in  the  imaginary  regions  of 
theology.  Here  is  the  manner  in  which 
he  speaks  of  the  Divinity  :f 

"This  God,"  says  he,  "governs  all, 
not  as  the  soul  of  the  world,  but  as  the 
lord  and  sovereign  of  all  things.  It  is 
in  consequence  of  his  sovereignty  that 
he  is  called  the  Lord  God,  IWrox-parup, 
the  universal  emperor.  Indeed,  the 
word  God  is  relative  and  relates  to 
slaves  ;  the  deity  is  the  dominion  or 
the  sovereignty  of  God,  not  over  his 
own  body,  as  those  who  look  upon  God 
as  the  soul  of  the  world  think,  but  over 
slaves." 

We  see  from  thence  that  Newton, 
as  well  as  all  the  theologians,  makes 
of  his  God  a  pure  spirit,  who  presides 
over  the  universe  ;  a  monarch,  a  lord 
paramount,  a  despot,  that  is  to  say,  a 
powerful  man ;  a  prince,  whose  gov- 
ernment takes  for  a  model  that  which 
the  kings  of  the  earth  sometimes  exer- 
cise over  their  subjects,  transformed 
into  slaves,  whom  ordinarily  they  make 
to  feel,  in  a  very  grievous  manner,  the 
weight  of  their  authority.  Thus  the 
God  of  Newton  is  a  despot,  that  is  to 
say,  a  man,  who  has  the  privilege  of 


*  See    Tlie  Impious   Man  Convinced,  p. 
143  and  214. 

t  See  Principia  Mathematica,   page  528, 
and  sequel.    London  edition,  1726. 


223 


EXAMINATION    OF  THE  PROOFS 


being  good  when  it  pleases  him,  unjust 
and  perverse  when  his  fancy  so  deter- 
mines him.  But,  according  to  the  ideas 
of  Newton,  the  world  has  not  existed 
from  all  eternity,  the  slaves  of  God 
have  been  formed  in  the  course  of 
time,  therefore,  we  must  conclude  from 
it  that  before  the  creation  of  the  world, 
the  God  of  Newton  was  a  sovereign 
without  subjects  and  without  estates. 
Let  us  see  if  this  great  philosopher  is 
more  in  accord  with  himself,  in  the 
subsequent  ideas  which  he  gives  us  of 
his  deified  despot. 

"The  supreme  God,"  he  says,  "is 
an  eternal,  infinite,  and  absolutely  per- 
fect being,  but  however  perfect  a  being 
he  may  be,  if  he  has  no  sovereignty, 
he  is  not  the  supreme  God  :  the  word 
GOD  signifies  "lord,  but  every  lord  is  not 
God ;  it  is  the  sovereignty  of  the  spir- 
itual being  which  constitutes  God ;  it 
is  the  true  sovereignty  which  consti- 
tutes the  true  God ;  it  is  the  supreme 
sovereignty  which  constitutes  the  su- 
preme God;  it  is  a  false  sovereignty 
which  constitutes  a  false  God.  From 
true  sovereignty,  it  follows,  that  the 
true  God  is  living,  intelligent  and  pow- 
erful ;  and  from  his  other  perfections, 
it  follows,  that  he  is  supremely  or 
sovereignly  perfect.  He  is  eternal,  in- 
finite, omniscient ;  that  is  to  say,  that 
he  exists  from  all  eternity,  and  will 
never  have  an  end :  durat  ab  ccterno, 
ab  infinite  in  infinitum ;  he  governs 
all  and  he  knows  every  thing  that  is 
done,  or  that  can  be  done.  He  is  nei- 
ther eternity  nor  infinity,  but  he  is  eter- 
nal and  infinite ;  he  is  not  space  nor 
duration,  but  he  exists  and  is  present 
(adest)"* 

In  all  this  unintelligible  rigmarole, 
we  see  nothing  but  incredible  efforts  to 
reconcile  the  theological  attributes  or 
the  abstract  qualities  with  the  human 
qualities  given  to  the  deified  monarch  ; 
we  see  in  it  negative  qualities,  which 
are  no  longer  suitable  to  man,  given, 
however,  to  the  sovereign  of  nature, 
whom  they  have  supposed  a  king.— 
However  it  may  be,  here  is  always  the 
supreme  God  who  has  occasion  for 
subjects  to  establish  his  sovereignty ; 
thus  God  needs  men  for  the  exercise 


*  The  word  adest,  which  Newton  makes 
use  of  in  the  text,  appears  to  be  placed  there 
to  avoid  saying  that  God  is  contained  in 
•pace. 


of  his 'empire,  without  which  he  would 
not  be  a  king.  When  there  was  no-- 
thing,  of  what  was  God  lord  ?  How- 
ever this  may  be,  this  lord,  this  spirit- 
ual king,  does  he  not  exercise  his  spir- 
itual empire  in  vain  upon  beings  who 
frequently  do  not  that  which  he  wills 
they  should  do,  who  are  continually 
struggling  against  him,  who  spread 
disorder  in  his  states  ?  This  spiritual 
monarch  is  the  master  of  the  minds, 
of  the  souls,  of  the  wills,  and  of  the 
passions,  of  his  subjects,  to  whom  he 
has  left  the  freedom  of  revolting  against 
him.  This  infinite  monarch,  who  fills 
every  thing  with  his  immensity,  and 
who  governs  all,  does  he  govern  the 
man  Avho  sins,  does  he  direct  his  ac- 
tions, is  he  in  him  when  he  offends  his 
God?  The  Devil,  the  false  God,  the 
evil  principle,  has  he  not  a  more  exten- 
sive empire  than  the  true  God,  whose 
projects,  according  to  the  theologians, 
h.e  is  unceasingly  overturning  1  The 
true  sovereign,  is  it  not  he  whose  pow- 
er in  a  state  influences  the  greater 
number  of  his  subjects?  If  God  is 
omnipresent,  is  he  not  the  sad  witness 
and  the  accomplice  of  those  outrages 
which  are  every  where  offered  to  his 
divine  majesty?  If  he  fills  all,  has 
he  not  extent,  does  he  not  correspond 
with  various  points  of  space,  and  from 
thence  does  he  not  cease  to  be  spirit- 
ual ? 

"God  is  one,"  continues  Newton, 
"  and  he  is  the  same  for  ever  and  every 
where,  not  only  by  his  virtue  alone,  or 
his  energy,  but  also  by  his  substance." 

But  how  can  a  being  Avho  acts,  who 
produces  all  those  changes  which  be- 
ings undergo,  always  be  the  same  ? 
What  is  understood  by  the  A'irtue  or 
energy  of  God  ?  These  vague  words, 
do  they  present  any  clear  idea  to  our 
mind?  What  is  understood  by  the 
divine  substance?  If  this  substance 
is  spiritual  and  devoid  of  extent,  how 
can  there  exist  in  it  any  parts  ?  How 
can  it  put  matter  in  motion?  How 
can  it  be  conceived  ? 

Nevertheless,  Newton  tells  us,  that 
"  all  things  are  contained  in  him,  and 
are  moved  in  him,  but  without  recipro- 
cal action  (sed  sine  mutua  passione). 
God  experiences  nothing  by  the  motion 
of  bodies ;  these  experience  no  oppo- 
sition whatever  by  his  omnipresence." 

It  here  appears,  that  Newton  gives 


OF   THE   EXISTENCE   OP   GOD. 


229 


fo  the  Divinity  characters  which  are 
suitable  only  to  vacuum  and  to  no- 
thing. Without  that,  we  cannot  con- 
ceive that  it  is  possible  not  to  have  a 
reciprocal  action  or  relation  between 
those  substances  which  are  penetrated, 
which  are  encompassed  on  all  sides. 
It  appears  evident  that  here  the  author 
does  not  understand  himself. 

"It  is  an  incontestable  truth  that 
God  exists  necessarily,  and  the  same 
necessity  obliges  him  to  exist  always 
and  every  where :  from  whence  it  fol- 
lows that  he  is  in  every  thing  similar 
to  itself;  he  is  all  eyes,  all  ears,  all 
brain,  all  arms,  all  feeling,  all  intelli- 
gence, and  all  action  ;  but  in  a  mode 
by  no  means  human,  by  no  means  cor- 
poreal, and  which  is  totally  unknown 
to  us.  In  the  same  manner  ,as  a  blind 
man  has  no  idea  of-  eejours,  it  is  thus 
we  have  no  idea  of  the  mode  in  which 
God  feels  and  understands." 

The  necessary  existence  of  the  Di- 
vinity, is  precisely  the  thing  in  ques- 
tion ;  it  is  this  existence  which  it  is 
necessary  to  have  verified  by  proofs 
as  clear,  and  demonstration  as  strong, 
as  gravitation  and  attraction.  If  the 
thing  had  been  possible,  the  genius  of 
Newton  would,  without  doubt,  have 
compassed  it.  But,  oh  man !  so  great 
and  so  powerful,  when  you  were  a 
geometrician  ;  so  little  and  so  weak, 
when  you  became  a  theologian ;  that 
is  to  say,  when  you  reasoned  upon  that 
which  can  neither  be  calculated  nor 
submitted  to  experience ;  how  could 
you  think  of  speaking  to  us  of  a  being 
who  is,  by  your  own  confession,  to  you 
just  what  a  picture  is  to  a  blind  man  ? 
Wherefore  quit  nature,  to  seek  in  ima- 
ginary spaces,  those  causes,  those  pow- 
ers, and  that  energy,  which  nature 
would  have  shown  you  in  itself,  if  you 
had  been  willing  to  consult  her  with 
your  ordinary  sagacity  ?  But  the  great 
Newton  has  no  longer  any  courage ;  he 
voluntarily  blinds  himself,  when  the 
question  is  a  prejudice  which  habit  has 
made  him  look  upon  as  sacred.  Let  us 
continue,  however,  to  examine  how 
far  the  genius  of  man  is  capable  of 
leading  itself  astray,  when  once  he 
abandons  experience  and  reason,  and 
suffers  himself  to  be  guided  by  his 
imagination. 

"  God,"  continues  the  father  of  mod- 
ern philosophy,  "  is  totally  destitute  of 


body  and  of  corporeal  figure ;  here  is 
the  reason  why  he  cannot  be  either 
seen  or  touched,  or  understood ;  and 
ought  not  to  be  adored  under  any  cor- 
poreal form." 

But  what  ideas  can  be  formed  of  a 
being  who  is  nothing  of  that  of  which 
we  have  a  knowledge  ?  What  are  the 
relations  which  can  be  supposed  to 
exist  between  us  and  him?  To  what 
end  adore  him?  Indeed  if  you  do 
adore  him,  you  will  be  obliged,  in 
despite  of  yourself,  to  make  him  a  be- 
ing similar  to  man ;  sensible,  like  him, 
to  homage,  to  presents,  and  to  flattery  5 
in  short,  you  will  make  him  a  king, 
who,  like  those  of  the  earth,  exacts 
the  respect  of  all  who  are  subjected  to 
them.  Indeed,  he  adds  : — 

"  We  have  ideas  of  his  attributes, 
but  we  do  not  know  that  it  is  any  one 
substance ;  we  only  see  the  figures  and 
the  colours  of  bodies,  we  only  hear 
sounds,  we  only  touch  the  exterior  sur- 
faces, we  only  smell  odours,  we  only 
taste  flavours ;  no  one  of  our  senses, 
no  one  of  our  reflections,  can  show  us 
the  intimate  nature  of  substances  ;  we 
have  still  less  ideas  of  God." 

If  we  have  an  idea  of  the  attributes 
of  God,  it  is  only  because  we  give 
him  those  belonging  to  ourselves, 
which  we  never  do  more  than  aggran- 
dize or  exaggerate  to  that  height  as  to 
make  them  mistaken  for  those  quali- 
ties we  knew  at  first.  If,  in  all  those 
substances  which  strike  our  senses,  we 
only  know  the  effects  which  they  pro- 
duce on  us,  and  after  which  we  assign 
them  qualities,  at  least  these  qualities 
are  something,  and  give  birth  to  dis- 
tinct and  clear  ideas  in  us.  That  su- 
perficial knowledge,  or  whatever  it 
may  be,  which  our  senses  furnish  us, 
is  the  only  one  we  can  possibly  have  ; 
constituted  as  we  are,  we  find  ourselves 
obliged  to  be  contented  with  it,  and 
we  see  that  it  is  sufficient  for  our 
wants :  but  we  have  not  even  the  most 
superficial  idea  of  a  God  distinguished 
from  matter,  or  from  all  known  sub- 
stances ;  nevertheless,  we  are  reason- 
ing upon  him  unceasingly ! 

'•  We  only  have  a  knowledge  of  God 
by  his  attributes,  by  his  properties,  and 
by  the  excellent  and  wise  arrangement 
which  he  has  given  to  all  things,  and 
their  final  causes ;  and  we  admire 
him  in  consequence  of  his  perfections." 


230 


EXAMINATION    OF   THE   PROOFS 


I  repeat,  that  we  have  no  knowledge 
of  God,  but  by  those  of  his  attributes 
which  we  borrow  from  ourselves ;  but 
it  is  evident  they  cannot  become  suitable 
to  the  universal  being,  who  can  have 
neither  the  same  nature  nor  the  same 
properties  as  particular  beings,  such 
as  ourselves.  It  is  after  ourselves,  that 
we  assign  to  God,  intelligence,  wisdom 
and  perfection,  in  abstracting  from  him 
that  which  we  call  defects  in  our- 
selves. As  to  the  order  or  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  universe,  of  which  we 
make  a  God  the  author,  we  find  it  ex- 
cellent and  wise,  when  it  is  favour- 
able to  us,  or  when  the  causes  which 
are  coexistent  with  ourselves  do  not 
disturb  our  own  peculiar  existence ; 
otherwise,  we  complain  of  the  confu- 
sion, and  ihejinal  causes  vanish.  We 
attribute  to  an  immutable  God,  mo- 
tives.-equally  borrowed  from  our  own 
peculiar  mode  of  action,  for  deranging 
the  beautiful  order  which  we  admire  in 
the  universe.  Thus  it  is  always  in 
ourselves,  that  is  in  our  peculiar  mode 
of  feeling,  that  we  draw  up  the  ideas 
of  order,  the  attributes  of  wisdom,  of 
excellence,  and  of  perfection,  which 
we  give  to  God ;  whilst  all  the  good 
and  all  the  evil  which  happen  in  the 
world,  are  the  necessary  consequences 
of  the  essences  of  things,  and  of  the 
general  laws  of  matter,  in  short,  of  the 
gravity,  of  the  attraction,  and  of  the 
repulsion,  and  of  the  laws  of  motion, 
which  Newton  himself  has  so  well 
developed,  but  which  he  dared-  not 
apply,  as  there  was  a  question  concern- 
ing the  phantom  to  which  prejudice 
ascribes  the  honour  of  all  those  effects, 
of  which  nature  is  itself  the  true 
cause. 

"  We  revere  and  we  adore  God  on 
account  of  his  sovereignty:  we  wor- 
ship him  like  his  slaves ;  a  God  destitute 
of  sovereignty,  of  providence,  and  of 
final  causes,  would  be  no  more  than 
nature  and  destiny." 

It  is  true,  we  adore  God  like  igno- 
rant slaves,  who  tremble  under  a  mas- 
ter whom  they  know  not ;  we  foolishly 
pray  to  him,  although  he  is  represented 
to  us  as  immutable ;  although,  in  truth, 
this  God  is  nothing  more  than  nature 
acting  by  necessary  laws  necessarily 
personified,  or  destiny,  to  which  the 
name  of  God  is  given. 

Nevertheless,  Newton  tells  us, "  from 


a  physical  and  blind  necessity,  which 
should  preside  every  where,  and  he 
always  the  same,  there  could  not 
emanate  any  variety  in  beings ;  the 
diversity  which  we  see,  could  only 
have  their  origin  in  the  ideas  and  the 
will  of  a  being  which  exists  necessa- 
rily." 

Wherefore  should  this  diversity  not 
happen  from  natural  causes,  from  mat- 
ter acting  by  itself,  and  of  which  the 
motion  attracts  and  combines  various, 
and  yet  analogous  elements  :  or  sepa- 
rates beings,  by  the  aid  of  those  substan- 
ces which  are  not  found  suitable  to 
unite  ?  Is  not  bread  the  result  of  the 
combination  of  flower,  yest,  and  wa- 
ter. As  for  the  blind  necessity,  as  is 
elsewhere  said,  it  is  that  of  which  we 
ignore  the  energy,  or  of  which,  being 
blind  ourselves,  we  have  no  knowledge 
of  the  mode  of  action.  Philosophers 
explain  all  phenomena  by  the  proper- 
ties of  matter;  and  though  they  feel 
the  want  of  being  acquainted  with  the 
natural  causes,  they  do  not  less  believe 
them  deducible  from  their  properties 
or  their  causes.  The  philosophers, 
then,  in  this,  are  atheists !  otherwise, 
they  would  reply,  that  it  is  God  who  is 
the  author  of  all  these  phenomena. 

"  It  is  allegorically  said,  that  God 
sees,  hears,  speaks,  smilesj  lives,  hates, 
desires,  gives,  receives,  rejoices,  or  be- 
comes angry,  fights,  makes  and  fash- 
ions, &c.  For  all  that  is  said  of  God, 
is  borrowed  from  the  conduct  of  men, 
by  a  kind  of  imperfect  analogy." 

Men  have  not  been  able  to  do  other- 
wise, for  want  of  being  acquainted 
with  nature  and  her  ways  ;  they  have 
imagined  a  peculiar  energy,  to  which 
they  have  given  the  name  of  God,  and 
they  have  made  him  act  according  to 
the  same  principles,  as  they  are  them- 
selves made  to  act  upon,  or  according 
to  which  they  would  act,  if  they  were 
the  masters :  it  is  from  this  theanthropy 
that  have  flowed  all  those  absurd  and 
frequently  dangerous  ideas,  upon  which 
are  founded  all  the  religions  of  the 
world,  who  all  adore  in  their  God  a 
powerful  and  wicked  man.  We  shall 
see  by  the  sequel,  the  fatal  effects 
which  have  resulted  to  the  human  spe- 
cies, from  those  ideas  which  they  have 
formed  to  themselves  of  the  Divinity, 
whom  they  have  never  considered  but 
as  an  absolute  sovereign,  a  despot,  and 


OF  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  GOD. 


231 


a  tyrant.  As  for  the  present,  let  us 
continue  to  examine  the  proofs  which 
are  given  to  us  by  the  deists  of  the  exist- 
ence of  their  God,  whom  they  imagine 
they  see  every  where. 

Indeed,  it  is  unceasingly  repeated  to 
us,  that  the  regulated  motion,  the  in- 
variable order,  which  we  see  reign  in 
the  universe,  those  benefits  which  are 
heaped  upon  men,  announce  a  wisdom, 
an  intelligence,  a  goodness,  which  we 
cannot  refuse  acknowledging  in  the 
cause  which  produces  such  marvellous 
effects.  We  shall  reply,  that  the  regu- 
lated motion  which  we  witness  in  the 
universe,  is  the  necessary  consequence 
of  the  laws  of  matter ;  it  cannot  cease 
to  act  in  the  manner  it  does,  so  long 
as  the  same  causes  act  in  it ;  these  mo- 
tions cease  to  be  regulated,  order  gives 
place  to  disorder,  as  soon  as  new 
causes  disturb  or  suspend  the  action  of 
the  first.  Order,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
shown,  is  only  the  effect  which  results 
to  us  from  a  series  of  motion ;  there 
cannot  be  any  real  disorder  relative  to 
the  great  whole,  where  every  thing  that 
takes  place  is  necessary  and  deter- 
mined by  laws  that  nothing  can  change. 
The  order  of  nature  may  be  contradict- 
ed or  destroyed,  relatively  to  us,  but 
never  is  it  contradicted  relatively  to 
itself,  since  it  cannot  act  otherwise 
than  it  does.  If,  after  the  regulated 
and  well-ordered  motion  which  we 
see,  we  attribute  intelligence,  wisdom, 
and  goodness,  to  the  unknown  or  sup- 
posed cause  of  these  effects,  we  are 
obliged  in  a  similar  manner  to  attribute 
to  him  extravagance  and  malice,  every 
time  that  these  motions  become  con- 
fused, that  is  to  say,  cease  to  be  regu- 
lated relatively  to  us,  or  that  we  are 
ourselves  disturbed  by  them,  in  our 
mode  of  existence. 

It  is  pretended  that  animals  furnish 
us  with  a  convincing  proof  of  a  pow- 
erful cause  of  their  existence ;  it  is 
said,  that  the  admirable  harmony  of 
their  parts,  which  we  see  lend  each 
other  mutual  assistance,  to  the  end  of 
fulfilling  their  functions  and  maintain- 
ing them  together,  announce  to  us  a 
workman,  who  unites  wisdom  to  pow- 
er.* 


*  We  have  already  remarked,  elsewhere, 
that  many  authors,  with  a  view  of  proving 
the  existence  of  a  divine  intelligence,  have 
copied  whole  tracts  of  anatomy  and  botany, 


We  cannot  doubf  the  power  of  na- 
ture ;  she  produces  all  the  animals  we 
see,  by  the  aid  of  the  combination  of 
matter  which  is  a  continual  action; 
the  harmony  that  subsists  between  the 
parts  of  these  same  animals,  is  a  con- 
sequence of  the  necessary  laws  of  their 
nature  and  of  their  combination;  as 
soon  as  this  accord  ceases,  the  animal 
is  necessarily  destroyed.  What  be- 
comes then  of  the  wisdom,  of  the  in- 
telligence, or  the  goodness  of  that  pre- 
tended cause  to  whom  they  ascribe  the 
honour  of  this  so  much  boasted  har- 
mony ?  These  animals,  so  marvellous, 
which  are  said  to  be  the  work  of  an 
immutable  God,  are  they  not  continu- 
ally changing  ;  and  do  they  not  always 
finish  by  decaying?  Where  is  the 
wisdom,  the  goodness,  the  foresight, 
and  the  immutability,  of  a  workman, 
who  appears  only  to  be  occupied  with 
deranging  and  breaking  the  springs  of 
those  machines,  which  are  announced 
to  us  as  the  chefs  cP&uvres  of  his 
power  and  of  his  ability.  If  this  God 
cannot  do  otherwise,  he  is  neither  free 
nor  omnipotent.  If  he  changes  his  will, 
he  is  not  immutable.  If  he  permits 

which  prove  nothing,  except  that  there  exists 
in  nature  elements  suitable  to  unite,  to  ar- 
range themselves,  to  co-order  themselves,  in  a 
mode  to  form  wholes,  or  combinations  sus- 
ceptible of  producing  particular  effects.  Thus 
these  writings,  loaded  with  erudition,  only 
make  known  that  there  exists  in  nature  beings 
diversely  organized,  formed  in  a  certain  man- 
ner, suitable  to  certain  uses,  who  would  no 
longer  exist  under  the  form  they  at  present 
have,  if  their  particles  ceased  to  act  as  they 
do,  that  is  to  say,  to  be  disposed  in  such  a 
manner,  as  to  lend  each  other  mutual  suc- 
cours. To  be  surprised  that  the  brain,  the 
heart,  the  eyes,  the  arteries,  and  veins,  of  an 
animal  act  as  we  see  them,  that  the  roots  of  a 
plant  attract  juices,  or  that  a  tree  produces 
fruit,  is  to  be  surprised  that  an  animal,  a 
plant,  or  a  tree  exists.  These  beings  would 
not  exist,  or  would  no  longer  be  that  which 
we  know  they  are,  if  they  ceased  to  act  as 
they  do ;  this  is  what  happens  when  they  die. 
If  their  formation,  their  combination,  their 
modes  of  action  and  of  conserving  them- 
selves some  time  in  life,  was  a  proof  that 
these  beings  are  the  effects  of  an  intelligent 
cause ;  their  destruction,  their  dissolution,  the 
total  cessation  of  their  mode  of  acting,  their 
death,  ought  to  prove,  in  the  same  manner, 
that  these  beings  are  the  effects  of  a  cause 
destitute  of  intelligence,  and  of  permanent 
views.  If  we  are  told  that  his  views  are  un- 
known to  us;  we  shall  ask,  by  what  right 
then  they  can  ascribe  them  to  this  cause,  or 
how  it  can  be  reasoned  upon  ? 


EXAMINATION  OP  THE  PROOFS 


232 

those  machines,  which  he  has  render- 
ed sensible,  to  experience  pain,  he 
wants  goodness.  If  he  has  not  been 
able  to  render  his  works  more  solid,  it 
is  that  he  wants  the  ability.  In  seeing 
that  animals,  as  well  as  all  the  other 
works  of  the  Divinity,  decay,  we  can- 
not prevent  ourselves  from  concluding 
therefrom,  either  that  every  thing  na- 
ture does  is  necessary,  and  is  only  a 
consequence  of  its  laws,  or  that  the 
workman  who  made  it  is  destitute  of 
plan,  of  power,  of  stability,  of  ability, 
of  goodness. 

Man,  who  looks  upon  himself  as  the 
chef-cPauvre  of  the  Divinity,  furnishes 
more  than  every  other  production,  a 
proof  of  the  incapacity  or  of  the  malice 
of  his  pretended  author :  in  this  sensi- 
ble, intelligent,  and  thinking  being, 
who  believes  himself  the  constant  ob- 
ject of  the  divine  predilection,  and 
who  forms  his  God  after  his  own  pecu- 
liar model,  we  only  see  a  more  incon- 
stant, more  brittle  machine,  which  is 
more  subject  to  derange  itself,  by  its 
great  complication,  than  the  grosser 
beings.  Beasts,  destitute  of  our  know- 
ledge, plants,  which  vegetate,  stones, 
devoid  of  feeling,  are,  in  many  re- 
spects, beings  more  favoured  than  man ; 
they  are,  at  least,  exempted  from  the 
sorrows  of  the  mind ;  from  the  torments 
of  thought ;  from  that  devouring  cha- 
grin, of  which  he  is  so  frequently  the 
prey.  Who  is  he  that  would  not  be 
an  animal  or  a  stone,  every  time  he 
recalls  to  his  imagination  the  irrepar- 
able loss  of  a  beloved  object  ?  Would 
it  not  be  better  to  be  an  inanimate 
mass,  than  a  restless,  superstitious  be- 
ing, who  does  nothing  but  tremble 
here  below  under  the  yoke  of  his  God, 
and  who  again  foresees  infinite  tor- 
ments in  a  future  life  ?  Beings,  desti- 
tute of  feeling,  of  life,  of  memory,  and 
of  thought,  are  not  afflicted  by  the  idea 
of  the  past,  of  the  present,  or  of  the 
future  ;  they  do  not  believe  themselves 
in  danger  of  becoming  eternally  un- 
happy from  having  reasoned  badly, 
like  many  of  those  favoured  beings 
who  pretend  it  is  for  them  alone  that 
the  architect  of  the  world  has  con- 
structed the  universe.* 

*  Cicero  says:  "Inter  hominem  etbelluam 
hoc  maxime  interest,  quod  hoec  ad  id  solum 
quod  adest,  quod  que  praesens  est,  se  accom- 
modat,  paululum  admodum  sentiens  praeteri- 


Let  us  not  be  told  that  we  cannot 
have  the  idea  of  a  work  without  hav- 
ing also  that  of  a  workman  distinguish- 
ed from  his  work.  Nature  is  not  a 
work;  she  has  always  been  self-exist- 
ent ;  it  is  in  her  bosom  that  every  thing 
is  operated ;  she  is  an  immense  elabo- 
ratory,  provided  with  materials,  and 
who  makes  the  instruments  of  which 
she  avails  herself  to  act :  all  her  works 
are  the  effect  of  her  own  energy,  and 
of  those  agents  or  causes  which  she 
makes,  which  she  contains,  which  she 
puts  in  action.  Eternal,  uncreated, 
indestructible  elements,  always  in  mo- 
tion, in  combining  themselves  various- 
ly, give  birth  to  all  the  beings  and  to 
all  the  phenomena  which  our  eyes  be- 
hold ;  to  all  the  effects,  good  or  bad, 
which  we  feel ;  to  the  order  or  the  con- 
fusion which  we  never  distinguish  but 
by  the  different  modes  in  which  we 
are  affected]  in  short,  to  all  those 
wonderful  phenomena  upon  which  we 
meditate  and  reason.  For  that  pur- 
pose, these  elements  have  occasion 
only  for  their  properties,  whether  par- 
ticular or  united,  and  the  motion  which 
is  essential  to  them,  without  its  being 
necessary  to  recur  to  an  unknown 
workman  to  arrange,  fashion,  combine, 
conserve,  and  dissolve  them. 

But,  supposing,  for  an  instant,  that  it 
were  impossible  to  conceive  the  uni- 
verse without  a  workman,  who  has 
formed  it,  and  who  watches  over  his 
work,  where  shall  we  place  this  work- 
man ?  shall  it  be  within  or  without  the 
universe  1  is  he  matter  or  motion ;  or 
rather,  is  he  only  space,  nothing,  or 
the  vacuum  ?  In  all  these  cases,  either 
he  would  be  nothing,  or  he  would  be 
contained  in  nature,  and  submitted  to 
her  laws.  If  he  be  in  nature,  I  can 
only  see  matter  in  motion,  and  I  must 
conclude  from  it  that  the  agent  who 

turn  et  futiirum."  Thus,  what  it  has  been 
wished  to  make  pass  as  a  prerogative  of  man, 
is  only  a  real  disadvantage.  Seneca  has  said : 
"  Nos  et  venturo  torquemur  et  prasterito,  timo- 
ris  enim  torrnentum  memoria  reducit,  provi- 
dentia  anticipat ;  nemo  tantum  praesentibus 
miser  est."  Could  we  not  demand  of  every 
honest  man,  who  tells  us  that  a  good  God 
created  the  universe  for  the  happiness  of  our 
sensible  species,  would  you  yourself  have  cre- 
ated a  world  which  contains  so  many  wretches  ? 
would  it  not  have  been  better  to  have  abstain- 
ed from  creating  so  great  a  number  of  sensi- 
ble beings,  than  to  have  called  them  into  life 
for  the  purpose  of  making  them  suffer  ? 


OF  THE   EXISTENCE  OF  GOD. 


233 


moves  it  is  corporeal  and  material,  and 
that,  consequently,  he  is  subject  to  dis- 
solution. If  this  agent  be  exterior  to 
nature,  I  have  then  no  longer  any  idea 
of  the  place  which  he  occupies,  neither 
can  I  conceive  an  immaterial  being, 
nor  the  mode  in  which  a  spirit  without 
extent,  can  act  upon  the  matter  from 
which  it  is  separated.  Those  unknown 
spaces  which  the  imagination  has  pla- 
ced beyond  the  visible  world,  have  no 
existence  relatively  to  a  being  who 
sees  with  difficulty  down  to  his  feet; 
the  ideal  power  which  inhabits  them 
cannot  be  painted  to  my  mind,  but 
when  my  imagination  shall  combine 
at  random  the  fantastical  colours  which 
it  is  always  obliged  to  draw  from  the 
world  where  I  am ;  in  this  case,  I  shall 
do  no  more  than  reproduce  in  idea  that 
which  my  senses  shall  have  really  per- 
ceived, and  this  God,  which  I  strive  to 
distinguish  from  nature,  or  to  place  out 
of  its  bosom,  will  always  return  into 
it  necessarily  and  in  despite  of  me.* 

It  will  be  insisted  that  if  a  statue  or 
a  watch  were  shown  to  a  savage,  who 
had  never  before  seen  either,  he  would 
not  be  able  to  prevent  himself  from  ac- 
knowledging that  these  things  were 
the  works  of  some  intelligent  agent, 
of  more  ability,  and  more  industrious 
than  himself:  it  will  be  concluded 
from  thence,  that  we  are  in  like  man- 
ner obliged  to  acknowledge  that  the 
machine  of  the  universe,  that  man,  that 
the  various  phenomena  of  nature,  are 
the  works  of  an  agent,  whose  intelli- 
gence and  power  far  surpasses  our 
own. 

I  reply,  in  the  first  place,  that  we  can- 
not doubt  that  nature  is  extremely  pow- 
erful and  very  industrious ;  we  admire 
her  activity,  every  time  that  we  are 
surprised  by  those  extensive,  various, 
and  complicated  effects  which  we  find 
in  those  of  her  work,  which  we  take 
the  trouble  to  meditate  upon ;  never- 
theless, she  is  neither  more  nor  less  in- 


*  Hobbcs  says :  "  The  world  is  corporeal ;  it 
has  the  dimensions  of  size,  that  is  to  say, 
length,  breadth,  and  depth.  Each  portion  of 
a  body,  is  a  body,  and  has  these  same  dimen- 
sions :  consequently,  each  part  of  the  uni- 
verse is  a  body,  and  that  which  is  not  a  body, 
is  no  part  of  the  universe ;  but  as  the  universe 
is  every  thing,  that  which  does  not  make  a 
part  of  it,  is  nothing,  and  can  be  no  part." 
See  Hobbcs'  Leviathan,  chap.  46. 

No.  VIII.— 30 


dustrious  in  one  of  her  works  than  in 
another.  We  no  more  understand  how 
she  has  been  capable  of  producing  a 
stone  or  a  metal,  than  a  head  organized 
like  that  of  Newton.  We  call  that 
man  industrious,  who  can  do  things, 
which  we  ourselves  cannot  do;  na- 
ture can  do  every  thing,  and  as  soon, 
as  a  thing  exists,  it  is  a  proof  that  she 
has  been  capable  of  making  it.  Thus 
it  is  never  more  than  relatively  to  our- 
selves that  we  judge  nature  to  be  in- 
dustrious ;  we  compare  her  then  to  our- 
selves ;  and  as  we  enjoy  a  quality 
which  we-  call  intelligence,  by  the  as- 
sistance of  which  we  produce  works, 
or  by  which  we  show  our  industry,  we 
conclude  from  it,  that  those  works  of 
nature,  which  astonish  us  the  most,  do 
not  belong  to  her,  but  are  to  be  ascrib- 
ed to  an  intelligent  workman  like  our- 
selves, but  in  whom  we  proportion  the 
intelligence  to  the  astonishment  which 
his  works  produce  in  us,  that  is  to  say, 
to  our  own  peculiar  weakness  and  igno- 
rance. 

In  the  second  place,  the  savage  to 
whom  a  statue  or  a  watch  shall  be 
brought,  will  or  will  not  have  ideas  of 
human  industry  :  if  he  has  ideas  of  it, 
he  will  feel  that  this  watch  or  this 
statue,  may  be  the  work  of  a  being  of 
his  own  species,  enjoying  those  facul- 
ties which  he  himself  lacks.  If  the 
savage  has  no  idea  of  human  industry 
and  of  the  resources  of  art,  in  seeing 
the  spontaneous  motion  of  a  watch,  he 
will  believe  that  it  is  an  animal,  which 
cannot  be  the  work  of  man.  Multi- 
plied experience,  confirms  the  mode  of 
thinking  which  I  ascribe  to  this  sav- 
age.* Thus  in  the  same  manner  as  a 
great  many  men,  who  believe  them- 
selves much  more  acute  than  he,  this 
savage  will  attribute  the  strange  effects 
he  sees,  to  a  Genius,  to  a  Spirit,  to  a 
God ;  that  is  to  say,  to  an  unknown 
power,  to  whom  he  will  assign  capa- 
3ilities  of  which  he  believes  the  beings 
of  his  own  species  to  be  absolutely 
destitute;  by  this  he  will  prove  BO-* 


*  The  Americans  took  the  Spaniards  for 
ods,  because  they  made  use  of  gunpowder, 
rode  on  horseback,  and  had  vessels  which 
sailed  quite  alone.  The  inhabitants  of  the 
sland  of  Tenian,  having  no  knowledge  of  fire 
>efore  the  arrival  of  the  Europeans,  took  it, 
he  first  time  they  saw  it,  for  a,n  animal  which 
devoured  wood. 


234 


EXAMINATION  OF   THE  PROOFS 


thing,  except  that  he  is  ignorant  of 
what  man  is  capable  of  producing.  It 
is  thus  that  a  raw,  unpolished  people 
raise  their  eyes  to  heaven,  every  time 
they  witness  some  unusual  phenome- 
non. It  is  thus  that  the  people  call 
'miraculous,  supernatural,  divine,  all 
those  strange  effects  of  the  natural 
causes  of  which  they  are  ignorant; 
and  as  for  the  greater  part,  they  do  not 
know  the  cause  of  any  thing;  every 
thing  is  a  miracle  to  them,  or  at  least 
they  imagine  that  God  is  the  cause  of 
all  the  good  and  of  all  the  evil  which 
they  experience.  In  short,  it  is  thus 
that  theologians  solve  all  difficulties  in 
attributing  to  God  every  thing  of  which 
they  are  ignorant,  or  of  which  they  are 
not  willing  men  should  understand  the 
true  causes. 

In  the  third  place,  the  savage,  in  open- 
ing the  watch  and  examining  its  parts, 
will  feel,  perhaps,  that  these  parts  an- 
nounce a  work  which  can  only  be 
the  result  of  human  labour.  He  will 
see  that  they  differ  from  the  immediate 
productions  of  nature,  whom  he  has  not 
seen  produce  wheels  made  of  a  polish- 
ed metal.  He  will  again  see  that  these 
parts,  separated  from  each  other,  no  lon- 
ger act  as  they  did  when  they  were  to- 
gether; after  these  observations,  the 
savage  will  attribute  the  watch  to  the 
ingenuity  of  man,  that  is  to  say,  to  a 
being  like  himself,  of  whom  he  has 
ideas,  but  whom  he  judges  capable  of 
doing  things  which  he  does  not  himself 
know  how  to  do ;  in  short,  he  will  as- 
cribe the  honour  of  this  work  to  a  be- 
ing known  in  some  respects,  provided 
with  some  faculties  superior  to  his  own, 
but  he  will  be  far  from  thinking  that  a 
material  work  can  be  the  effect  of  an  im- 
material cause,  or  of  an  agent  destitute 
of  organs  and  of  extent,  of  whom  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  the  action  upon 
material  beings  :  whilst,  for  want  of  be- 
ing acquainted  with  the  power  of  na- 
ture, we  ascribe  the  honour  of  her  work 
to  a  being  of  whom  we  have  much  less 
knowledge  than  of  her,  and  to  which, 
without  knowing  it,  we  attribute  those 
amongst  her  labours  which  we  compre- 
hend the  least.  In  seeing  the  world, 
we  acknowledge  a  material  cause  ol 
those  phenomena  which  take  place  in 
it ;  and  this  cause  is  nature,  of  whom 
the  energy  is  shown  to  those  who  study 
her. 


Let  us  not  be  told,  that,  according  to 
this  hypothesis,  we  attribute  every 
thing  to  a  blind  cause,  to  the  fortuitous 
concurrence  of  atoms  ;  to  chance.  We 
only  call  those  blind  causes,  of  which 
we  know  not  the  combination,  the  pow- 
er, and  the  laws.  We  call  fortuitous, 
those  effects  of  which  we  are  ignorant 
of  the  causes,  and  which  our  ignorance 
and  inexperience  prevent  us  from  fore- 
seeing. We  attribute  to  chance,  all 
those  effects  of  which  we  do  not  see 
the  necessary  connexion  with  their 
causes.  Nature  is  not  a  blind  cause  ; 
she  does  not  act  by  chance ;  nothing 
that  she  does  would  ever  be  fortuitous 
to  him  who  should  know  her  mode  of 
acting,  her  resources,  and  her  course. 
Every  thing  which  she  produces  is  ne- 
cessary, and  is  never  more  than  a  con- 
sequence of  her  fixed  and  constant  laws; 
every  thing  in  her  is  connected  by 
invisible  bands,  and  all  those  effects 
which  we  see  flow  necessarily  from 
their  causes,  whether  we  know  them 
or  not.  It  is  very  possible  there  should 
be  ignorance  on  our  part,  but  the  words 
God,  Spirit,  Intelligence,  will  not  re- 
medy this  ignorance :  they  will  do  no 
more  than  redouble  it  by  preventing  us 
from  seeking  the  natural  causes  of  those 
effects  which  our  visual  faculties  make 
us  acquainted  with. 

This  may  serve  for  an  answer  to  the 
eternal  objection  which  is  made  to  the 
partisans  of  nature,  who  are  unceasing- 
ly accused  of  attributing  every  thing 
to  chance.  Chance  is  a  word  devoid 
of  sense,  or  at  least  it  indicates  only 
the  ignorance  of  those  who  employ  it. 
Nevertheless  we  are  told,  and  it  is  reit- 
erated continually,  that  a  regular  work 
cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  combinations- 
of  chance.  Never,  we  are  informed,, 
will  it  be  possible  to  arrive  at  the  for- 
mation of  a  poem,  such  as  the  Iliad,  by 
means  of  letters  thrown  or  combined 
together  at  random.  We  agree  to  it 
without  hesitation  ;  but,  ingeniously, 
are  those  letters  thrown  with  the  hand 
like  dice,  which  compose  a  poem  ?  It 
would  avail  as  much  to  say  that  we 
could  pronounce  a  discourse  with  the 
feet.  It  is  nature  who  combines,  after 
certain  and  necessary  laws,  a  head  or- 
ganized in  a  manner  to  make  a  poem ; 
it  is  nature  who  gives  man  a  brain  suit- 
able to  give  birth  to  such  a  work ;  it 
is  nature  who,  by  the  temperament,  the 


OP   THEEXISTENCE   OP    GOD. 


235 


imagination,  the  passions,  which  she 
gives  to  man,  capacitates  him  to  pro- 
duce a  chef-cPceuvre  :  it  is  his  brain, 
modified  in  a  certain  manner,  decora- 
ted with  ideas  or  images,  made  fruitful 
by  circumstances,  which  can  become 
the  only  matrix  in  which  a  poem  can 
be  conceived  and  developed.  A  head 
organized  like  that  of  Homer,  furnished 
with  the  same  vigour  and  the  same  im- 
agination, enriched  with  the  same 
knowledge,  placed  in  the  same  circum- 
stances, will  produce  necessarily,  and 
not  by  chance,  the  poem  of  the  Iliad  ; 
at  least  if  it  be  not  denied  that  causes 
similar  in  every  thing,  must  produce 
effects  perfectly  identical.* 

It  is,  then,  puerility,  or  knavery,  to 
*  talk  of  composing,  by  a  throw  of  the 
hand,  or  by  mingling  letters  together 
by  chance,  that  which  can  only  be  done 
with  the  assistance  of  a  brain  organiz- 
ed and  modified  in  a  certain  manner. 
The  human  seed  does  not  develop  it- 
self by  chance,  it  cannot  be  conceived 
or  formed  but  in  the  womb  of  a  woman. 
A  confused  heap  of  characters  or  of  fig- 
ures, is  only  an  assemblage  of  signs, 
destined  to  paint  ideas ;  but  in  order 
that  these  ideas  may  be  painted,  it  is 
previously  necessary  that  they  may 
have  been  received,  comhined,  nourish- 
ed, developed,  and  connected,  in  the 
head  of  a  poet,  where  circumstances 
make  them  fructify  and  ripen,  on  ac- 
count of  the  fecundity,  of  the  heat,  and 

*  Should  we  not  be  astonished  if  there  were 
in  a  dice-box  a  hundred  thousand  dice,  to  see 
a  hundred  thousand  sixes  follow  in  succession? 
Yes,  without  doubt,  it  will  be  said ;  but  if  these 
dico  were  all  cogged  or  loaded,  we  should 
cease  to  be  surprised.  Well  then,  the  parti- 
cles of  matter  may  be  compared  to  cogged 
dice,  that  is  to  say,  always  producing  certain 
deter-Tiined  effects ;  these  particles  being  es- 
sentially varied  in  themselves,  and  in  their 
combination,  they  are  cogged  in  an  infinity  of 
different  modes.  The  head  of  Homer,  or  the 
head  of  Virgil,  was  no  more  than  the  assem- 
blage of  particles,  or  if  they  choose,  of  dice, 
cogged  by  nature ;  that  is  to  say,  of  beings 
combined  and  wrought  in  a  manner  to  pro- 
duce the  Iliad  or  the  ^Eneid.  As  much  may 
be  said  of  all  the  other  productions,  whether 
they  be  those  of  intelligence,  or  of  the  handi- 
work of  men.  Indeed,  what  are  men,  except 
dice  cogged,  or  machines  which  nature  has 
rendered  capable  of  producing  works  of  a  cer- 
tain kind  ?  A  man  of  genius  produces  a  good 
work,  in  the  same  manner  as  a  tree  of  good 
species,  placed  in  good  ground,  and  cultivated 
with  care,  produces  excellent  fruit. 


I  of  the  energy  of  the  soil  where  these 
'  intellectual  seeds  have  been  thrown. 
Ideas,  in  combining,  extending,  con- 
necting, and  associating  themselves, 
form  a  whole,  like  all  the  bodies  of  na- 
ture :  this  whole  pleases  us,  when  it 
gives  birth  to  agreeable  ideas  in  our 
mind;  when  they  offer  us  pictures 
which  move  us  in  a  lively  manner ;  it 
is  thus  that  the  poem  of  Homer,  engen- 
dered in  his  head,  has  the  power  of 
pleasing  heads  analogous  and  capable 
of  feeling  its  beauties. 

We  see,  then,  that  nothing  is  made 
by  chance.  All  the  works  of  nature 
grow  out  of  certain  uniform  and  inva- 
riable laws,  whether  our  mind  can  with 
facility  follow  the  chain  of  the  succes- 
sive causes  which  she  puts  in  action, 
or  whether,  in  her  more  complicated 
works,  we  may  find  ourselves  in  the 
impossibility  of  distinguishing  the  dif- 
ferent springs  which  she  causes  to  act.j 
It  is  not  more  difficult  for  nature  to  pro- 
duce a  great  poet,  capable  of  composing 


t  It  is  not  often  that  the  most  sedulous  at- 
tention, the  most  patient  investigation,  afford 
us  the  information  we  are  seeking  after ;  some- 
times, however,  the  unwearied  industry  of  the 
philosopher  is  rewarded  by  throwing  into 
light  the  most  mysterious  operations  of  Na- 
ture. Thus  the  keen  penetration  of  a  New- 
ton, aided  by  uncommon  diligence,  developed 
the  starry  system,  which,  for  so  many  thou- 
sand years,  had  eluded  the  research  of  all  the 
astronomers  by  whom  he  was  preceded.  Thus 
the  sagacity  of  a  Harvey  giving  vigour  to  his 
application,  brought  out  of  the  obscurity  in 
which  for  almost  countless  centuries  it  had 
been  buried,  the  true  course  pursued  by  the 
sanguinary  fluid,  when  circulating  through 
the  veins  and  arteries  of  man,  giving  activity 
to  his  machine,  diffusing  life  through  his  sys- 
tem, arid  enabling  him  to  perform  those  ac- 
tions which  so  frequently  strike  an  astonished 
world  with  wonder  and  regret.  Thus  Galileo, 
by  a  quickness  of  perception,  a  depth  of  rea- 
soning peculiar  to  himself,  held  up  to  an  ad- 
miring world,  the  actual  form  and  situation  of 
the  planet  we  inhabit,  which,  until  then,  had 
escaped  the  observation  of  the  most  profound 
geniuses — the  most  subtile  metaphysicians-- 
and  which,  when  first  promulgated,  was  con- 
sidered so  contradictory  to  all  the  then  receiv- 
ed opinions,  (besides  giving  the  lie  to  the  stp- 
rv  of  Joshua  stopping  the  sun,  as  recorded  in 
the  Holy  tfible !)  that  he  was  ranked  as  an 
impious  blasphemer,  to  hold  communion  with 
whom  would  infallibly  secure  to  the  commu- 
ners  a  place  in  the  regions  of  everlasting  tor- 
ment :  indeed,  Pope  Gregory,  who  then  filled 
the  papal  chair,  excommunicated  all  those 
who  had  the  temerity  to  accredit  so  abomina- 
ble a  doctrine ! 


236 


OP  PANTHEISM,  OR  OP   THE 


an  admirable  work,  than  to  produce  a 
glittering  metal  or  a  stone,  which  gra- 
vitates towards  a  centre.  The  mode 
which  she  takes  to  produce  these  dif- 
ferent beings,  is  equally  unknown  to  us, 
when  we  have  not  meditated  upon  it. 
Man  is  born  by  the  necessary  concur- 
rence of  some  elements  ;  he  increases 
and  is  strengthened  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  a  plant  or  a  stone,  which  is,  as 
well  as  he,  increased  and  augmented 
by  those  substances  which  come  and 
join  themselves  thereto:  this  man,  feels, 
thinks,  acts,  and  receives  ideas,  that  is 
to  say,  is,  by  his  peculiar  organization, 
susceptible  of  modifications,  of  which 
the  plant  and  the  stone  are  totally  in- 
capable: in  consequence,  the  man  of 
genius  produces  works,  and  the  plant 
fruits,  which  please  and  surprise  us,  by 
reason  of  those  sensations  which  they 
operate  in  us ;  or  on  account  of  the  rar- 
ity, the  magnitude,  and  the  variety  of 
the  effects  which  they  occasion  us  to 
experience.  That  which  we  find  most 
admirable  in  the  productions  of  nature, 
and  in  those  of  animals  or  men,  is  ne- 
ver more  than  a  natural  effect  of  the 
parts  of  matter,  diversely  arranged  and 
combined ;  from  whence  result  in  them 
organs,  brains,  temperaments,  tastes, 
properties,  and  different  talents. 

Nature,  then,  makes  nothing  but  what 
is  necessary  ;  it  is  not  by  fortuitous 
combinations,  and  by  chance  throws, 
that  she  produces  the  beings  we  see  ; 
all  her  throws  are  sure,  all  the  causes 
which  she  employs  have,  infallibly, 
their  effects.  When  she  produces  ex- 
traordinary, marvellous  and  rare  beings, 
it  is,  that,  in  the  order  of  things,  the  ne- 
cessary circumstances,  or  the  concur- 
rence of  the  productive  causes  of  these 
beings,  happen  but  seldom.  As  soon 
as  these  beings  exist,  they  are  to  be  as- 
cribed to  nature,  to  whom  every  thing 
is  equally  easy,  and  to  whom  every 
thing  is  equally  possible,  when  she  as- 
sembles the  instruments  or  the  causes 
necessary  to  act.  Thus,  let  us  never 
limit  the  powers  of  nature.  The  throws 
and  the  combinations  which  she  make 
during  eternity,  can  easily  produce  all 
beings  ;  her  eternal  course  must  neces- 
sarily bring  and  bring  again  the  most 
astonishing  circumstances,  and  the 
most  rare,  for  those  beings  who  are  only 
for  a  moment  enabled  to  consider  them 


without  ever  having  either  the  time  Of 
the  means  of  searching  into  the  bottom 
of  causes.  Infinite  throws  during  eter- 
nity, with  the  elements,  and  combina- 
tions infinitely  varied,  suffice  to  pro- 
duce every  thing  of  which  we  have  a 
knowledge,  and  many  other  things 
which  we  shall  never  know. 

Thus,  we  cannot  too  often  repeat  to 
the  Deicolists,  or  supporters  of  the  be- 
ing of  a  God,  who  commonly  ascribe 
to  their  adversaries  ridiculous  opinions, 
in  order  to  obtain  an  easy  and  transito- 
ry triumph  in  the  prejudiced  eyes  of 
those  who  dare  examine  nothing  deep- 
ly, that  chance  is  nothing  but  a  word, 
as  well  as  the  word  God,  imagined  to 
cover  the  ignorance  in  which  men  are 
of  the  causes  acting  in  a  nature  whose 
course  is  frequently  inexplicable.  It 
is  not  chance  that  has  produced  the 
universe,  it  is  of  itself  that  which  it  is  ; 
it  exists  necessarily  and  from  all  eter- 
nity. However  concealed  may  be  the 
ways  of  nature,  her  existence  is  indu- 
bitable ;  and  her  mode  of  acting  is,  at 
least,  much  more  known  to  us  than 
that  of  the  inconceivable  being,  which, 
it  has  been  pretended,  is  associated 
with  her ;  which  has  been  distinguish- 
ed from  her  ;  which  has  been  supposed 
necessary  and  self-existent,  although, 
hitherto,  it  has  neither  been  possible  to 
demonstrate  his  existence,  to  define 
him,  to  say  any  thing  reasonable  of 
him,  nor  to  form  upon  his  account  any 
thing  more  than  conjectures,  which  re- 
flection has  destroyed  as  soon  as  th«;y 
have  been  brought  forth. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Of  Pantheism,  or  of  the  Natural  Ideas  of  the 
Divinity. 

WE  see,  by  that  which  has  preceded, 
that  all  the  proofs  upon  which  theolo- 
gy pretends  to  found  the  existence  of 
it's  God,  have  their  origin  in  the  false 
principle  that  matter  is  not  self-exist- 
ent, and  is,  by  its  nature,  in  an  impos- 
sibility of  moving  itself;  and,  conse- 
quently, is  incapable  of  producing  those 
phenomena  which  attract  our  wonder- 
ing eyes  in  the  wide  expanse  of  the  uni- 
verse. After  these  suppositions,  so 
gratuitous  and  so  false,  as  we  have  al- 


NATURAL  IDEAS  OP  THE  DIVINITY. 


237 


shown  elsewhere,*  it  has  been 
believed  that  matter  did  not  always  ex- 
ist, but  that  it  was  indebted  for  its  ex- 
istence and  for  its  motion  to  a  cause 
distinguished  from  itself;  to  an  un- 
known agent,  to  whom  it  was  subordi- 
nate. As  men  find  in  themselves  a 
quality  which  they  call  intelligence, 
which  presides  over  all  their  actions, 
and  by  the  aid  of  which  they  arrive  at 
the  end  they  propose  to  themselves, 
they  have  attributed  intelligence  to 
this  invisible  agent ;  but  they  have  ex- 
tended, magnified,  and  exaggerated  this 
quality  in  him.  because  they  have  made 
him  the  author  of  effects  of  which  they 
believed  themselves  incapable,  or  which 
they  did  not  suppose  natural  causes  had 
sufficient  energy  to  produce* 

As  this<agent  could  never  be  perceiv- 
ed, nor  his  mode  of  action  conceived, 
he  Avas  made  a  spirit,  a  word  which  de- 
signates that  we  are  ignorant  what  he 
is,  or  that  he  acts  like  the  breath  of 
which  we  cannot  trace  the  action. 
Thus,  in  assigning  him  spirituality, 
we  did  no  more  than  give  to  God  an 
occult  quality,  which  was  judged  suit- 
able to  a  being  always  concealed,  and 
always  acting  in  a  mode  imperceptible 
to  the  senses.  It  appears,  however, 
that,  originally,  by  the  word  spirit  it 
was  meant  to  designate  a  matter  more 
subtile  than  that  which  coarsely  struck 
the  organs ;  capable  of  penetrating  this 
matter,  of  communicating  to  it  motion 
and  life,  of  producing  in  it  those  com- 
binations and  those  modifications  which 
our  visual  organs  discover.  Such  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  that  Jupiter,  who  was 
originally  designed  to  represent  in  the 
theology  of  the  ancients  the  ethereal 
matter  which  penetrates,  gives  activity, 
and  vivifies  all  the  bodies  of  which  na- 
ture is  the  assemblage. 

Indeed  it  would  be  deceiving  our- 
selves to  believe  that  the  idea  of  God's 
spirituality,  such  as  we  find  it  at  the  pre- 
sent day,  presented  itself  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  human  mind.  This  im- 
materiality, which  excludes  all  anal- 
ogy and  all  resemblance  with  any  thing 
we  are  in  a  capacity  to  have  a  know- 

*See  first  part,  chapter  second,  where  we 
have  shown  mat  motion  is  essential  to  matter. 
This  chapter  is  only  a  summary  of  the  first 
five  chapters  of  the  first  part,  which  it  is  in- 
tended to  recall  to  the  reader;  he  will  pass  to 
the  next  if  these  ideas  are  remembered. 


ledge  of,  was,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, the  slow  and  tardy  fruit  of  men's 
imagination,  who,  obliged  to  meditate, 
without  any  assistance  drawn  from  ex- 
perience, upon  the  concealed  mover  of 
nature,  have,  by  degrees,  arrived  at 
forming  this  ideal  phantom ;  this  being, 
so  fugitive,  that  we  have  been  made  to 
adore  it  without  being  able  to  designate 
its  nature,  otherwise  than  by  a  word  to 
which  it  is  impossible  we  should  attach 
any  true  idea.*  Thus  by  dint  of  rea- 
soning and  subtilizing,  the  word  God 
no  longer  presents  any  one  image; 
when  they  spoke  of  it,  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  understand  them,  seeing  that 
each  painted  it  in  his  own  manner,  and 
in  the  portrait  which  he  made  of  it,  con- 
sulted only  his  own  peculiar  tempera- 
ment, his  own  peculiar  imagination,  and 
his  own  peculiar  reveries  ;  if  they  were 
in  unison  in  some  points,  it  was  to  as- 
sign him  inconceivable  qualities,  which 
they  believed  were  suitable  to  the  in- 
comprehensible being  to  which  they 
had  given  birth  ;  and  from  the  incom- 
patible heap  of  these  qualities  resulted 
only  a  whole,  perfectly  impossible  to 
have  existence.  In  short,  the  master 
of  the  universe,  the  omnipotent  mover 
of  nature,  that  being  which  is  announ- 
ced as  of  the  most  importance  to  be 


*See  what  has  been  said  upon  this  in  the 
seventh  chapter  of  the  first  part.  Although 
the  first  doctors  of  the  Christian  Church  may, 
for  the  greater  part,  have  drawn  from  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy  their  obscure  notions  of  spi- 
rituality, of  incorporeal,  and  immaterial  sub- 
stances, of  intellectual  powers,  tf-e.  we  have 
only  to  open  their  works,  to  convince  ourselves 
that  they  had  not  that  idea  of  God  which  the 
theologians  of  the  present  day  give  us.  Ttr- 
tullian,  as  we  have  elsewhere  said,  considered 
God  as  corporeal.  Seraphis  said,  crying,  that 
Ihcy  had  deprived  him  of  his  God,  in  making 
him  adopt  the  opinion  of  spirituality,  which 
was  not,  however,  so  much  subtilized 'then  as 
it  has  been  since.  Many,  fathers  of  the  Ch  nrck 
have  given  a  human  form  to  God,  and  have 
treated  as  heretics  those  who  made  him  a 
spirit.  The  Jupiter  of  the  pagan  theology  is 
looked  upon  as  the  youngest  child  of  Saturn 
or  of  Time:  the  spiritual  God  of  the  Chris- 
tians is  a  much  more  recent  production  of 
time  ;  it  is  only  by  dint  of  subtilizing  that  this 
God,  the  conqueror  of  all  those  Gods  who 
preceded  him,  has  been  formed  by  degrees. 
Spirituality  is  become  the  last  refuge  of  the- 
ology, which  has  arrived  at  making  a  God 
more  than  aerial  in  the  hope,  no  doubt,  that 
such  a  God  would  be  inaccessible  ;  indeed,  he 
is  so,  for  to  attack  him  is  to  combat  a  mere 
chimera. 


238 


OF  PANTHEISM,    OR   OP   THE 


known,  was  by  theological  reveries,  re- 
duced to  be  no  more  than  a  vague  word 
destitute  of  sense;  or,  rather  a  vain 
sound,  to  which  each  attaches  his  own 
peculiar  ideas.  Such  is  the  God  who 
has  been  substituted  to  matter,  to  na- 
ture ;  such  is  the  idol  to  which  men 
are  not  permitted  to  refuse  paying  their 
homage. 

There  have  been,  however,  men  of 
sufficient  courage  to  resist  this  torrent 
of  opinion  and  delirium.  They  be- 
lieved that  the  object  which  wras  an- 
nounced as  the  most  important  for  mor- 
tals, as  the  only  centre  of  their  actions 
and  their  thoughts,  demanded  an  at- 
tentive examination.  They  apprehen- 
ded that  if  experience,  judgment,  or 
reason,  could  be  of  any  utility,  it  must 
be,  without  doubt,  to  consider  the  sub- 
lime monarch  who  governed  nature, 
and  who  regulated  the  destiny  of  all 
those  beings  which  it  contains.  They 
quickly  saw  they  could  not  subscribe  to 
the  general  opinion  of  the  uninformed, 
who  examine  nothing  ;  and  much  less 
with  their  guides,  who,  deceivers  or 
deceived,  forbade  others  to  examine  it, 
or  perhaps,  were  themselves  incapable 
of  making  such  an  examination.  Thus, 
some  thinkers  had  the  temerity  to  shake 
off  the  yoke  which  had  been  imposed 
upon  them  in  their  infancy  ;  disgusted 
with  the  obscure,  contradictory,  and 
nonsensical  notions  which  they  had 
been  made,  by  habit,  to  attach  mechan- 
ically to  the  vague  name  of  a  God 
impossible  to  be  defined ;  supported 
by  reason  against  the  terrours  with 
which  this  formidable  chimera  was  en- 
vironed ;  revolting  at  the  hideous  paint- 
ings under  which  it  was  pretended  to 
represent  him,  they  had  the  intrepidity 
to  tear  the  veil  of  delusion  and  impos- 
turo  ;  they  considered,  with  a  calm  eye, 
this  pretended  power,  become  the  con- 
tinual object  of  the  hopes,  the  fears, 
the  reveries,  and  the  quarrels  of  blind 
mortals.  The  spectre  quickly  disap- 
peared before  them  ;  the  tranquillity  of 
their  mind  permitted  them  to  see  every 
where,  only  a  nature  acting  after  inva- 
riable laws,  of  whom  the  world  is  the 
theatre  ;  of  whom  men,  as  well  as  all 
other  beings,  are  the  works  and  the  in- 
struments, obliged  to  accomplish  the 
eternal  decrees  of  necessity. 

Whatever  efforts  we  make  to  pene- 
trate into  the  secrets  of  nature,  we  ne- 


ver find  in  them,  as  we  have  many  times 
repeated,  more  than  matter,  various  in 
itself,  and  diversely  modified  by  the  as- 
sistance of  motion.  Its  whole,  as  well 
as  all  its  parts,  show  us  only  necessary 
causes  and  effects,  which  flow  the  one 
from  the  other,  and  of  which,  by  the 
aid  of  experience,  our  mind  is  more  or 
less  capable  of  discovering  the  connex- 
ion. In  virtue  of  these  specific  pro- 
perties, all  the  beings  we  see  gravitate, 
attract  and  repel  each  other ;  are  born, 
and  dissolved,  receive  and  communi- 
cate motion,  qualities,  modifications, 
which  maintain  them,  for  a  time,  in  a 
given  existence,  or  which  make  them 
pass  into  a  new  mode  of  existence.  It 
is  to  these  continual  vicissitudes  that 
are  to  be  ascribed  all  the  phenomena, 
great  or  small,  ordinary  or  extraordi- 
nary, known  or  unknown,  simple  or 
complicated,  which  we  see  operated  in 
the  world.  It  is  by  these  changes  that 
we  have  a  knowledge  of  nature  ;  she 
is  only  mysterious  to  those  who  con- 
sider her  through  the  veil  of  prejudice, 
her  course  being  always  simple  to  those 
who  look  at  her  Avithout  prepossession. 

To  attribute  the  effects  our  eyes  Avit- 
ness  to  nature,  to  matter  variously  com- 
bined, to  the  motion  which  is  inherent 
in  it,  is  to  give  them  a  general  and 
known  cause  ;  to  penetrate  deeper,  is 
to  plunge  ourselves  in  imaginary  re- 
gions, where  Ave  only  find  an  abyss  of 
incertitudes  and  obscurities.  Let  us 
not  seek,  then,  a  moving  principle  out 
of  nature  of  Avhich  the  essence  always 
Avas  to  exist  and  to  move  itself;  Avhich 
cannot  be  conceived  to  be  without  pro- 
perties, consequently,  Avithout  motion ; 
of  which  all  the  parts  are  in  action,  re- 
action, and  continual  efforts  ;  Avhere  a 
single  molecule  cannot  be  found  that 
is  in  absolute  repose,  and  Avhich  does 
not  necessarily  occupy  the  place  as 
signed  to  it  by  necessary  laws.  What 
occasion  is  there  to  seek  out  of  matter 
a  motive-poAver  to  give  it  play,  since 
its  motion  floAVs  necessarily  from  its 
existence,  its  extent,  its  forms,  its  gra- 
vity, &c.,  and  since  nature  in  inaction 
would  no  longer  be  nature  1 

If  it  be  demanded  hoAV  Ave  can  figure 
to  ourselves,  that  matter,  by  its  own 
peculiar  energy,  can  produce  all  the  ef- 
fects Ave  witness?  I  shall  reply,  that  if 
by  matter  it  is  obstinately  determined 
to  understand  nothing  but  a  dead  and 


NATURAL  IDEAS  OF  THE  DIVINITY. 


239 


inert  mass,  destitute  of  every  property, 
without  action,  and  incapable  of  mo- 
ving itself,  we  shall  no  longer  have  a 
single  idea  of  matter.  As  soon  as  it 
exists,  it  must  have  properties  and 
qualities  ;  as  soon  as  it  has  properties, 
without  which  it  could  not  exist,  it  must 
act  by  virtue  of  those  properties,  since 
it  is  only  by  its  action  that  we  can  have 
a  knowledge  of  its  existence  and  its 
properties.  It  is  evident,  that  if  by  mat- 
ter be  understood  that  which  it  is  not, 
or  if  its  existence  be  denied,  those  phe- 
nomena which  strike  our  visual  organs, 
cannot  be  attributed  to  it.  But  if  by 
nature  be  understood  that  which  she 
truly  is,  a  heap  of  existing  matter,  fur- 
nished with  properties,  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  acknowledge  that  nature 
must  move  herself,  and  by  her  diver- 
sified motion  be  capable,  without  for- 
eign aid,  of  producing  the  effects  which 
we  behold  ;  we  shall  find  that  nothing 
can  be  made  from  nothing;  that  no- 
thing is  made  by  chance ;  that  the 
mode  of  acting  of  every  particle  of 
matter  is  necessarily  determined  by  its 
own  peculiar  essence,  or  by  its  individ- 
ual properties. 

We  have  elsewhere  said,  that  that 
which  cannot  be  annihilated  or  destroy- 
ed cannot  have  commenced  to  have  ex- 
istence. That  which  cannot  have  had 
a  beginning,  exists  necessarily,  or  con- 
tains within  itself  the  sufficient  cause 
of  its  own  peculiar  existence.  It  is, 
then,  useless  to  seek  out  of  nature  or 
of  a  self-existent  cause,  which  is  known 
to  us  at  least  in  some  respects,  another 
cause  whose  existence  is  totally  un- 
known. We  know  some  general  pro- 
perties in  matter,  we  discover  some  of 
its  qualities ;  wherefore  seek  for  its 
existence  in  an  unintelligible  cause, 
which  we  cannot  know  by  any  one  pro- 
perty ?  Wherefore  recur  to  the  incon- 
ceivable and  chimerical  operation 
which  has  been  designated  by  the  word 
creation  ?*  Can  we  conceive  that  an 

*  Some  theologians  have  frankly  confessed 
that  the  theory  of  the  creation  was  founded 
on  an  hypothesis  supported  by  very  little  pro- 
bability, and  which  had  been  invented  some 
centuries  after  Jesus  Christ.  An  author,  who 
endeavoured  to  refute  Spinosa,  assumes  that 
Tertullian  was  the  first  who  advanced  this 
opinion  against  another  Christian  philosopher 
who  maintained  the  eternity  of  matter.  See 
"  The  Impious  Man  Convinced,"  end  of  the 
advertisement.  Even  the  author  of  this  work 


immaterial  being  has  been  able  to  draw 
matter  from  his  own  peculiar  source  ? 
If  creation  is  an  eduction  from  no- 
thing' must  we  not  conclude  from  it 
that  God,  who  has  drawn  it  from  his 
own  peculiar  source,  has  drawn  it  from 
nothing,  and  is  himself  nothing  ?  Do 
those  who  are  continually  talking  to  us 
of  this  act  of  the  divine  omnipotence, 
by  which  an  infinite  mass  of  matter 
has  been,  all  at  once,  substituted  to  no- 
thing, well  understand  what  they  tell 
us  1  Is  here  a  man  on  earth,  who  con- 
ceives that  a  being  devoid  of  extent, 
can  exist,  become  the  cause  of  the  ex- 
istence of  beings,  who  have  extent ;  act 
upon  matter,  draw  it  from  his  own  pe- 
culiar essence,  and  set  it  in  motion  1 
In  truth,  the  more  we  consider  theolo- 
gy, and  its  ridiculous  romances,  the 
more  we  must  be  convinced  that  it  has 
done  no  more  than  invent  words,  de- 
void of  sense,  and  substituted  sounds 
to  intelligible  realities. 

For  want  of  consulting  experience, 
of  studying  nature  and  the  material 
world,  we  have  thrown  ourselves  into 
an  intellectual  world,  which  we  have  * 
peopled  with  chimeras.  We  have  not 
stooped  to  consider  matter,  nor  to  fol- 
low it  through  its  different  periods  and 
changes.  We  have  either  ridiculously 
or  knavishly  confounded  dissolution, 
decomposition,  the  separation  of  the 
elementary  particles  of  which  bodies 
are  composed,  with  their  radical  de- 
struction ;  we  have  been  unwilling  to 
see  that  the  elements  were  indestructi- 
ble, although  their  forms  were  fleeting 
and  depended  upon  transitory  combi- 
nations. We  have  not  distinguished 
the  change  of  figure,  of  position,  of  tex- 
ture, to  which  matter  is  liable  from  its 
annihilation,  which  is  totally  impossi- 
ble ;  we  have  falsely  concluded  that 
matter  was  not  a  necessary  being,  that 
it  had  commenced  to  exist,  that  it  owed 
its  existence  to  an  unknown  being, 
more  necessary  than  itself;  and  this 
ideal  being  has  become  the  creator,  the 
motive-power,  the  preserver  of  the 
whole  of  nature.  Thus  a  vain  name 
only  has  been  substituted  for  matter, 
which  furnishes  us  with  true  ideas  of 
nature,  of  which,  at  each  moment  we 
experience  the  action  and  the  power? 

admits  that  it  is  impossible  to  combat  Spinosa 
without  admitiing  the  eternal  coexistence  of 
matter  with  God. 


240 


OF  PANTHEISM,   OR  OF   THE 


and  of  which  we  should  have  a  much 
better  knowledge  if  our  abstract  opin- 
ions did  not  continually  place  a  band- 
age before  our  eyes. 

Indeed,  the  most  simple  notions  of 
philosophy  show  us,  that  although  bo- 
dies change  and  disappear,  nothing  is, 
however,  lost  in  nature  ;  the  various 
produce  of  the  decomposition  of  a  body 
serves  for  elements,  for  materials,  and 
for  basis  to  the  formation,  to  the  accre- 
tion, to  the  maintenance  of  other  bodies. 
The  whole  of  nature  subsists  and  is 
conserved  only  by  the  circulation,  the 
transmigration,  the  exchange,  and  the 
perpetual  displacing  of  insensible  par- 
ticles and  atoms,  or  of  the  sensible  com- 
binations of  matter.  It  is  by  this  pa- 
lingenesia,  or  regeneration,  that  the 
great  whole  subsists,  who,  like  the  Sa- 
turn of  the  ancients,  is  perpetually  oc- 
cupied with  devouring  his  own  chil- 
dren. But  it  may  be  said,  in  some  re- 
spects, that  the  metaphysical  God.  who 
has  usurped  his  throne,  has  deprived 
him  of  the  faculty  of  procreating  and  of 
acting,  ever  since  he  has  been  put  in 
his  place. 

Let  us  acknowledge  then,  that  mat- 
ter is  self-existent,  that  it  acts  by  its 
own  peculiar  energy,  and  that  it  will 
never  be  annihilated.  Let  us  say,  that 
matter  is  eternal,  and  that  nature  has 
been,  is,  and  ever  will  be  occupied  with 
producing,  with  destroying,  with  do- 
ing, and  undoing ;  with  following  laws 
resulting  from  its  necessary  existence. 
For  every  thing  that  she  does,  she  needs 
only  to  combine  elements  and  matter, 
essentially  diverse,  which  attract  and 
repel  each  other,dash  against  each  other 
or  unite  themselves,  remove  from  or  ap- 
proximate each  other,  hold  themselves 
together  or  separate  themselves.  It  is 
thus,  that  she  brings  forth  plants,  ani- 
mals, men ;  organized,  sensible  and 
thinking  beings,  as  well  as  those  desti- 
tute of  feeling  and  of  thought.  All 
these  beings  act  only  for  the  term  of 
their  respective  duration,  according  to 
invariable  laws,  determined  by  their 
properties,  by  their  configuration,  their 
masses,  their  weight,  &c.  Here  is  the 
true  origin  of  every  fhing  which  pre- 
sents itself  to  our  view,  showing  the 
mode  in  which  nature,  by  its  own  pe- 
culiar power,  is  in  a  state  to  produce 
all  those  effects,  of  which  our  eyes  wit- 
ness, as  well  as  all  the  bodies  which 


act  diversely  upon  the  organs  with 
which  we  are  furnished,  and  of  which 
we  judge  only  according  to  the  manner 
in  which  these  organs  are  affected.  We 
say  they  are  good,  when  they  are  con- 
genial to  us,  or  contribute  to  maintain 
harmony  in  ourselves ;  we  say  they  are 
bad,  when  they  disturb  this  harmony  ; 
and  we  ascribe,  in  consequence,  aa  aim, 
ideas,  designs,  to  the  being,  whom  we 
make  the  motive-power  of  a  nature 
which  we  see  destitute  of  projects  and 
intelligence. 

Nature  is  effectually  destitute  of 
them ;  she  has  no  intelligence  or  end ; 
she  acts  necessarily,  because  she  exists 
necessarily.  Her  laws  are  immutable 
and  founded  upon  the  essence  of  things. 
It  is  the  essence  of  the  seed  of  the 
male,  composed  of  the  primitive  ele- 
ments, which  serve  for  the  basis  of  an 
organized  being,  to  unite  itself  with 
that  of  the  female,  to  fructify  it,  ta  pro- 
duce, by  its  combination  with  it,  a  new 
organized  being,  who,  feeble  in  his  ori- 
gin, for  want  of  a  sufficient  quantity  of 
particles  of  matter,  suitable  to  give  him 
consistence,  strengthens  himself  by 
degrees,  by  the  daily  and  continual  ad- 
dition of  particles,  analogous  and  ap- 
propriate to  his  being;  thus  he  lives-, 
he  thinks,  he  is  nourished,  and  he  en- 
genders, in  his  turn,  organized  beings 
similar  to  himself.  By  a  consequence 
of  permanent  and  physical  laws,  gene- 
ration does  not  take  place,  except  when 
the  circumstances  necessary  to  pro- 
duce it  find  themselves  united.  Thus, 
this  procreation  is  not  operated  by 
chance ;  the  animal  does  not  produce 
but  with  an  animal  of  his  own  species, 
because  this  is  the  only  one  analogous 
to  himself,  or  who  unites  the  qualities 
suitable  to  the  producing  a  being  simir 
lar  to  himself;  without  this,  he  would 
not  produce  any  thing,  he  would  only 
produce  a  being,  denominated  mon- 
strous, because  it  would  be  dissimilar  to 
himself.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  grain 
of  plants,  to  be  fructified  by  the  seed  of 
the  stamina  of  the  flower,  to  develop 
themselves  in  consequence  in  the  bow- 
els of  the  earth,  to  grow  with  the  assist- 
ance of  water,  to  attract  for  that  purpose 
analogous  particles,  to  form  by  degrees 
a  plant,  a  shrub,  a  tree  susceptible  of  the 
life,  the  action,  the  motion,  suitable  to 
vegetables.  It  is  of  the  essence  of 
particles  of  earth,  attenuated,  divided, 


NATURAL   IDEAS   OF  THE   DIVINITY, 


241 


elaborated  by  water  and  by  heat,  to 
unite  themselves,  in  the  bosom  of 
mountains,  with  those  which  are  an- 
alogous to  them,  and  to  form  by  their 
aggregation,  according  as  they  are  more 
or  less  similar  or  analogous,  bodies, 
more  or  less  solid  and  pure,  which  we 
denominate  crystals,  stones,  metals, 
minerals.  It  is  the  essence  of  the  ex- 
halations, raised  by  the  heat  of  the  at- 
mosphere, to  combine,  to  collect  them- 
selves, to  dash  against  each  other,  and, 
by  their  combination  or  their  collision, 
to  produce  meteors  and  thunder.  It  is 
the  essence  of  some  inflammable  mat- 
ter to  collect  itself,  to  ferment,  to  heat 
itself  in  the  caverns  of  the  earth,  to 
produce  those  terrible  explosions  and 
those  earthquakes  which  destroy  moun- 
tains, plains,  and  the  "habitations  of 
alarmed  nations ;  these  complain  to  an 
unknown  being,  of  the  evils  which  na- 
ture makes  them  experience  as  neces- 
sarily as  those  benefits  which  fill  them 
with  joy.  In  short,  it  is  the  essence  of 
certain  climates,  to  produce  men  so  or- 
ganized and  modified,  that  they  be- 
come either  extremely  useful,  or  very 
prejudicial  to  their  species,  in  the  same 
manner  as  it  is  the  property  of  certain 
portions  of  soil  to  bring  forth  agreeable 
fruits,  or  dangerous  poisons. 

In  all  this,  nature  has  no  end ;  she 
exists  necessarily,  her  modes  of  acting 
are  fixed  by  certain  laws,  which  flow 
themselves  from  the  constituent  pro- 
perties of  the  various  beings  Avhich 
she  contains,  and  those  circumstances 
which  the  continual  motion  she  is  in 
must  necessarily  bring  about.  It  is 
ourselves  who  have  a  necessary  aim, 
which  is  our  own  conservation ;  it  is 
by  this  that  we  regulate  all  the  ideas 
we  form  to  ourselves  of  the  causes 
which  act  upon  us,  and  by  which  we 
judge  of  them.  Animated  and  living 
ourselves,  we,  like  the  savages,  ascribe 
a  soul  and  life  to  every  thing  that  acts 
upon  us:  thinking  and  intelligent  our- 
selves, we  ascribe  to  every  thing  intel- 
ligence and  thought ;  but  as  we  see 
matter  incapable  of  so  modifying  it- 
self, we  suppose  it  to  be  moved  by  an- 
other agent  or  cause,  which  we  always 
make  similar  to  ourselves.  Necessa- 
rily attracted  by  that  which  is  advan- 
tageous to  us,  and  repelled  by  that 
which  is  prejudicial,  we  cease  to  reflect 
that  our  modes  of  feeling  are  due  to 

No., VIII.— 31 


our  peculiar  organization,  modified  by 
physical  causes,  which,  in  our  igno- 
rance we  mistake  for  instruments  em- 
ployed by  a  being  to  whom  we  ascribe 
our  ideas,  our  views,  our  passions,  our 
mode  of  thinking  and  of  acting. 

If  it  be  asked  of  us,  after  this,  what 
is  the  end  of  nature?  Ave  shall  reply, 
that  it  is  to  act,  to  exist,  to  conserve 
her  whole.  If  it  be  asked  of  us,  where- 
fore she  exists?  we  shall  reply,  that 
she  exists  necessarily,  and  that  all  her 
operations,  her  motions,  and  her  works, 
are  necessary  consequences  of  her  ne- 
cessary existence.  There  exists  some- 
thing that  is  necessary,  this  is  nature 
or  the  universe,  and  this  nature  acts 
necessarily  as  she  does.  If  it  be  wish- 
ed to  substitute  the  Avord  God  to  that 
of  nature,  it  may  be  demanded  with 
equal  reason,  Avherefore  this  God  ex- 
ists, as  well  as  it  can  be  asked,  Avhat  is 
the  end  of  the  existence  of  nature. 
Thus,  the  word  God  will  not  instruct 
us  as  to  the  end  of  his  existence.  But 
in  speaking  of  nature  or  of  the  mate- 
rial universe,  we  shall  have  fixed  and 
determinate  ideas  of  the  cause  of  which 
we  speak;  whilst  in  speaking  of  a  the- 
ological God,  we  shall  never  know 
what  he  can  be,  or  Avhether  he  exists, 
nor  the  qualities  which  AVC  can  with 
justice  assign  him.  If  Ave  give  him 
attributes,  it  will  always  be  ourselves 
Avho  must  conjecture  them,  and  it  will 
be  for  ourselves  alone  that  the  universe 
will  be  formed  :  ideas  which  we  have 
already  sufficiently  refuted.  To  unde- 
ceive ourselves,  it  is  sufficient  to  open 
our  eyes,  and  see  that  we  undergo,  in. 
our  mode,  a  destiny,  of  Avhich  Ave  par- 
take in  common  with  all  the  beings  of 
Avhich  nature  is  the  assemblage ;  like 
us,  they  are  subjected  to  necessity, 
which  is  no  more  than  the  sum  total 
of  those  laAVs  which  nature  is  obliged 
to  follow. 

Thus  every  thing  proves  to  us,  that 
nature  or  matter  exists  necessarily,  and 
cannot  swerve  from  those  laws  Avhich 
its  existence  imposes  on  it.  If  it  can- 
not be  annihilated,  it  cannot  have  com- 
menced to  be.  The  theologians  them- 
selves agree  that  it  were  necessary  to 
have  an  act  of  the  divine  omnipotence, 
or  that  which  they  call  a  miracle,  to 
annihilate  a  being;  but  a  necessary 
being,  cannot  perform  a  miracle ;  he 
cannot  derogate  from  the  necessary 


242 


OF  PANTHEISM,    OR  OP  THE 


laws  of  his  existence ;  we  must  con- 
clude, then,  that  if  God  is  the  neces- 
sary being,  every  thing  that  he  does, 
is  a  consequence  of  the  necessity  of 
his  existence,  and  that  he  can  never 
derogate  from  its  laws.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  are  told,  that  the  creation  is 
a  miracle,  but  this  creation  would  be 
impossible  to  a  necessary  being,  who 
could  not  act  freely  in  any  one  of  his 
actions.  Besides,  a  miracle  is  to  us 
only  a  rare  effect,  the  natural  cause  of 
which  we  ignore ;  thus,  when  we  are 
told  that  God  works  a  miracle,  we  are 
taught  nothing,  save  that  an  unknown 
cause  has  produced,  in  an  unknown 
manner,  an  effect  that  we  did  not  ex- 
pect, or  which  appears  strange  to  us. 
This  granted,  the  intervention  of  a 
God,  far  from  removing  the  ignorance 
in  which  we  find  ourselves  respecting 
the  power  and  the  effects  of  nature, 
serves  only  to  augment  it.  The  crea- 
tion of  matter,  and  the  cause  to  whom 
is  ascribed  the  honour  of  this  creation, 
are  to  us,  things  as  incomprehensible, 
or  as  impossible,  as  is  its  annihila- 
tion. 

Let  us  then  conclude,  that  the  word 
God,  as  well  as  the  word  create,  not 
presenting  to  the  mind  any  true  idea, 
ought  to  be  banished  the  language  01 
all  those  who  are  desirous  to  speak  so 
as  to  be  understood.  These  are  ab- 
stract words,  invented  by  ignorance ; 
they  are  only  calculated  to  satisfy  men 
destitute  of  experience,  too  idle,  or  too 
timid  to  study  nature  and  its  ways;  to 
content  those  enthusiasts,  whose  curi- 
ous imagination  pleases  itself  with 
springing  beyond  the  visible  world,  to 
run  after  chimeras.  In  short,  these 
words  are  useful  to  those  only,  whose 
sole  profession  is  to  feed  the  ears  of 
the  uninformed  with  pompous  words, 
which  are  not  understood  by  them- 
selves, and  upon  the  sense  and  mean- 
ing of  which  they  are  never  in  har- 
mony with  each  other. 

Man  is  a  material  being ;  he  cannot 
have  any  ideas  whatever  but  of  that 
which  is  material  like  himself;  that  is 
to  say,  of  that  which  can  act  upon  his 
organs,  or  of  that  which,  at  least,  has 
qualities  analogous  to  his  own.  In  de- 
spite of  himself,  he  always  assigns 
material  properties  to  his  God,  which 
the  impossibility  of  compassing  has 
made  him  suppose  to  be  spiritual,  and 


distinguished  from  nature  or  the  mate- 
rial world.  Indeed,  either  he  must  be 
content  not  to  understand  himself,  or 
he  must  have  material  ideas  of  a  God, 
who  is  supposed  to  be  the  creator,  the 
mover,  the  conserver  of  matter;  the 
human  mind  may  torture  itself  as  long 
as  it  will,  it  will  never  comprehend 
that  material  effects  can  emanate  from 
an  immaterial  cause,  or  that  this  cause 
can  have  any  relation  with  material 
beings.  Here  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
reason  why  men  believe  themselves 
obliged  to  give  to  God  those  moral 
qualities,  which  they  have  themselves ; 
they  forget  that  this  being,  who  is 
purely  spiritual,  cannot,  from  thence, 
have  either  their  organization,  or  their 
ideas,  or  their  modes  of  thinking  and 
acting,  and  that,  consequently,  he  can- 
not possess  that  which  they  call  intel- 
ligence, wisdom,  goodness,  anger,  jus- 
tice, &c.  Thus,  in  truth,  the  moral 
qualities  which  have  been  attributed  to 
the  Divinity,  suppose  him  material, 
and  the  most  abstract  theological  no- 
tions are  founded  upon  a  true  and  un- 
deniable anthropomorphism.* 

The  theologians,  in  despite  of  all  their 
subtilties,  cannot  do  otherwise ;  like 
all  the  beings  of  the  human  species, 
they  have  a  knowledge  of  matter  alone, 
and  have  no  real  idea  of  a  pure  spirit. 
When  they  speak  of  intelligence,  of 
wisdom,  and  of  design  in  the  Divinity, 
they  are  always  those  of  men  which 
they  ascribe  to  him,  and  which  they 
obstinately  persist  in  giving  to  a  being, 
of  whom  the  essence  they  ascribe  to 
him,  does  not  render  him  susceptible. 
How  shall  we  suppose  a  being,  who 
has  occasion  for  nothing,  who  is  suffi- 
cient for  himself,  whose  projects  must 
be  executed  as  soon  as  they  are  form- 
ed, to  have  wills,  passions,  and  de- 
sires ?  How  shall  we  attribute  anger 
to  a  being  who  has  neither  blood  nor 
bile  ?  How  an  omnipotent  being,  whose 
wisdom  and  the  beautiful  order  which 
he  has  himself  established  in  the  uni- 
verse we  admire,  can  permit  that  this 
beautiful  order  should  be  continually 
disturbed,  either  by  the  elements  in 
discord,  or  by  the  crimes  of  human 
creatures  ?  In  short,  a  God,  such  as 


*  Anthropomorphism  is  supposing  God  to 
have  a  bodily  shape  :  a  sect  of  this  persua- 
sion appeared  in  Egypt  in  359  of  the  Chris- 
tian era. 


NATURAL  IDEAS  OP  THE  DIVINITY, 


243 


he  has  been  depicted  to  us,  cannot 
have  any  of  the  human  qualities,  which 
always  depend  on  our  peculiar  organ- 
ization, on  our  wants,  on  our  institu- 
tions, and  which  are  always  relative 
to  the  society  in  which  we  live.  The 
theologians  vainly  strive  to  aggrandize, 
to  exaggerate  in  idea,  to  carry  to  per- 
fection, by  dint  of  abstractions,  the 
moral  qualities  which  they  assign  to 
their  God ;  in  vain  they  tell  us  that 
they  are  in  him  of  a  different  nature 
from  what  they  are  in  his  creatures ; 
that  they  are  perfect,  infinite,  su- 
preme, eminent ;  in  holding  this  lan- 
guage, they  no  longer  understand 
themselves ;  they  have  no  one  idea  of 
the  qualities  of  which  they  are  speak- 
ing to  us,  seeing  that  a  man  cannot 
conceive  them  but  inasmuch  as  they 
bear  an  analogy  to  the  same  qualities 
in  himself. 

It  is  thus,  that  by  subtilizing,  mor- 
tals have  not  one  fixed  idea  of  the  God 
to  whom  they  have  given  birth.  But 
little  contented  with  a  physical  God, 
with  an  active  nature,  with  matter  ca- 
pable of  producing  every  thing,  they 
must  despoil  it  of  the  energy  which  it 
possesses  in  virtue  of  its  essence,  in 
order  to  invest  it  in  a  pure  spirit,  which 
they  are  obliged  to  remake  a  material 
being,  as  soon  as  they  are  inclined  to 
form  an  idea  of  it  themselves,  or  make 
it  understood  by  others.  In  assembling 
the  parts  of  man,  which  they  do  no 
more  than  enlarge  and  spin  out  to  in- 
finity, they  believe  they  form  a  God. 
It  is  upon  the  model  of  the  human 
soul,  that  they  form  the  soul  of  nature, 
or  the  secret  agent  from  which  she  re- 
ceives impulse.  After  having  made 
man  double,  they  make  nature  double, 
and  they  suppose  that  this  nature  is 
vivified  by  an  intelligence.  In  the  im- 
possibility of  knowing  this  pretended 
agent,  as  well  as  that  which  they  have 
gratuitously  distinguished  from  their 
own  body,  they  have  called  it  spiritual, 
that  is  to  say,  of  an  unknown  sub- 
stance ;  from  this,  of  which  they  have 
no  ideas  whatever,  they  have  conclud- 
ed that  the  spiritual  substance  was 
much  more  noble  than  matter,  and  that 
its  prodigious  subtility,  which  they 
have  called  simplicity,  and  which  is 
only  an  effect  of  their  metaphysical 
abstractions,  secured  it  from  decompo- 
sition, from  dissolution,  and  from  all 


the  revolutions  to  which  material  bo- 
dies are  evidently  exposed. 

It  is  thus,  that  men  always  prefer  the 
marvellous  to  the  simple ;  that  which 
they  do  not  understand,  to  that  which 
they  can  understand ;  they  despise 
those  objects  which  are  familiar  to 
them,  and  estimate  those  alone  which 
they  are  not  capable  of  appreciating: 
from  that  of  which  they  have  only  had 
vague  ideas,  they  have  concluded  that 
it  contains  something  important,  super- 
natural, and  divine.  In  short,  they 
need  mystery  to  move  their  imagina- 
tion, to  exercise  their  mind,  to  feed 
their  curiosity,  which  is  never  more  in 
labour  than  when  it  is  occupied  with 
enigmas  impossible  to  be  guessed  at, 
and  which  they  judge,  from  thence, 
extremely  worthy  of  their  researches.* 
This,  without  doubt,  is  the  reason  why 
they  look  upon  matter,  which  they 
have  under  their  eyes,  which  they  see 
act  and  change  its  forms,  as  a  con 
temptible  thing,  as  a  contingent  being, 
which  does  not  exist  necessarily  and 
by  itself.  This  is  the  reason  why  they 
imagine  a  spirit,  which  they  will  never 
be  able  to  conceive,  and  which,  for  this 
reason,  they  declare  to  be  superior  to 
matter,  existing  necessarily  by  him- 
self, anterior  to  nature ;  its  creator,  its 
mover,  its  preserver,  and  its  master. 
The  human  mind  found  food  in  this 
mystical  being ;  it  was  occupied  by  it 
unceasingly ;  the  imagination  embel- 


*A  great  many  nations  have  adored  the 
sun ;  the  sensible  effects  of  this  star,  which 
appears  to  infuse  life  into  all  nature,  must 
naturally  have  induced  men  to  worship  it. — 
Yet,  whole  people  have  abandoned  this  God 
so  visible,  to  adopt  an  abstract  and  metaphys- 
ical God.  If  the  reason  of  this  phenomenon 
should  be  asked,  we  shall  reply,  that  the  God 
who  is  most  concealed,  most  mysterious,  and 
most  unknown,  must  always,  for  that  very 
reason,  be  more  pleasing  to  the  imagination 
of  the  uninformed,  than  the  God  whom  they 
see  daily.  An  unintelligible  and  mysterious 
tone  is  essentially  necessary  to  the  ministers 
of  all  religions :  a  clear,  intelligible  religion, 
without  mystery,  would  appeafless  divine  to 
the  generality  of  men,  and  would  be  less  use- 
ful' to  the  sacerdotal  order,  whose  interest  it 
is  that  the  people  should  comprehend  nothing 
of  that  which  they  believe  to  be  the  most  im- 
portant to  them.  This,  without  doubt,  is  the 
secret  of  the  clergy.  The  priest  must  have 
an  unintelligible  God,  whom  he  makes  to 
speak  and  act  in  an  unintelligible  manner, 
reserving  to  himself  the  right  of  explaining 
his  orders  after  his  own  manner. 


244 


OF  PANTHEISM,  OR  OF  THE 


lished  it  in  its  own  manner  ;  ignorance 
fed  itself  with,  the  fables  which  had 
been  recounted  of  it ;  habit  identified 
this  phantom  with  the  existence  of 
man,  it  became  necessary  to  him ;  man 
believed  he  fell  into  a  vacuum  when  it 
was  tried  to  detach  him  from  it,  to  lead 
him  back  to  a  nature  which  he  had 
long  ago  learnt  to  despise,  or  to  consid- 
er only  as  an  impotent  mass  of  matter, 
inert,  dead,  and  without  energy ;  or  as  a 
contemptible  assemblage  of  combina- 
tions and  of  forms  subject  to  perish. 

In  distinguishing  nature  from  its 
mover,  men  have  fallen  into  the  same 
absurdity  as  when  they  have  distin- 
guished their  soul  from  their  body,  life 
from  the  living  being,  the  faculty  of 
thought  from  the  thinking  being.  De- 
ceived on  their  own  peculiar  nature, 
and  upon  the  energy  of  their  organs, 
men  have  in  like  manner  been  deceiv- 
ed upon  the  organization  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  they  have  distinguished  nature 
from  herself;  the  life  of  nature  from 
living  nature ;  the  action  of  this  na- 
ture from  acting  nature.  It  was  this 
soul  of  the  world,  this  energy  of  na- 
ture, this  active  principle  which  men 
personified,  then  separated  by  abstrac- 
tion, sometimes  decorated  with  imagi- 
nary attributes,  sometimes  with  quali- 
ties borrowed  from  their  own  peculiar 
essences.  Such  were  the  aerial  mate- 
rials of  which  men  availed  themselves 
to  compose  their  God  ;  their  own  soul 
was  the  model ;  deceived  upon  the  na- 
ture of  this,  they  never  had  any  true 
ideas  of  the  Divinity,  who  was  only  a 
copy  exaggerated  or  disfigured  to  that 
degree,  as  to  mistake  the  prototype 
upon  which  it  had  been  originally 
formed. 

If,  because  man  has  been  distin- 
guished from  himself,  it  has  been  im- 
possible ever  to  form  any  true  ideas  of 
him,  it  is  also  for  having  distinguished 
nature  from  herself  that  nature  and  her 
ways  were  always  mistaken.  Men 
have  ceased  to  study  nature,  to  recur 
by  thought  to  her  pretended  cause,  to 
her  concealed  motive-power,  to  the 
sovereign  which  has  been  given  her. 
This  motive-power  has  been  made  an 
inconceivable  being,  to  whom  every 
thing  that  takes  place  in  the  universe 
has  been  attributed ;  his  conduct  has 
appeared  mysterious  and  marvellous 
because  he  was  a  continual  contradic- 


tion ;  it  has  been  supposed  that  hig 
wisdom  and  his  intelligence  were  the 
sources  of  order;  that  his  goodness 
was  the  spring  of  every  benefit ;  that 
his  rigid  justice  or  his  arbitrary  power, 
was  the  supernatural  cause  of  the 
confusion  and  the  evils  with  which  we 
are  afflicted.  In  consequence,  instead 
of  applying  himself  to  nature,  to  dis- 
cover the  means  of  obtaining  her  fa- 
vours, or  of  throwing  aside  his  mis- 
fortunes ;  in  the  room  of  consulting 
experience;  in  lieu  of  labouring  use- 
fully to  his  happiness,  man  was  only 
occupied  with  addressing  himself  to 
the  fictitious  cause  which  he  had  gra- 
tuitously associated  with  nature ;  he 
rendered  his  homage  to  the  sovereign 
which  he  had  given  to  this  nature ;  he 
expected  every  thing  from  him  and  no 
longer  relied  either  upon  himself  or 
upon  the  assistance  of  a  nature  be- 
come impotent  and  contemptible  in  his 
eyes. 

Nothing  could  be  more  prejudicial  to 
the  human  species  than  this  extrava- 
gant theory,  which,  as  we  shall  pre- 
sently prove,  has  become  the  source  of 
all  his  evils.  Solely  occupied  with 
the  imaginary  monarch  which  they 
had  elevated  to  the  throne  of  nature, 
mortals  no  longer  consulted  any  thing ; 
they  neglected  experience,  they  de- 
spised themselves,  they  mistook  their 
own  powers,  they  laboured  not  to  their 
own  well-being;  they  became  slaves, 
trembling  under  the  caprices  of  an 
ideal  tyrant,  from  whom  they  expected 
every  good,  or  from  whom  they  feared 
those  evils  which  afflicted  them. — 
Their  life  was  employed  in  rendering 
servile  homage  to  an  idol,  of  whom 
they  believed  themselves  eternally  in- 
terested in  meriting  the  goodness,  in 
disarming  the  justice,  in  calming  the 
wrath ;  they  were  only  happy  when 
consulting  reason,  taking  experience 
for  their  guide,  and  making  an  abstrac- 
tion of  their  romantic  ideas,  they  took 
courage,  gave  play  to  their  industry, 
and  applied  themselves  to  nature,  who 
alone  can  furnish  the  means  of  satis- 
fying their  wants  and  their  desires,  and 
of  throwing  aside  or  diminishing  those 
evils  which  they  are  obliged  to  expe- 
rience. 

Let  us,  then,  reconduct  bewildered 
mortals  to  the  altar  of  nature;  let  us 
destroy  those  chimeras  which  their 


NATURAL  IDEAS  OF  THE   DIVINITY. 


245 


ignorant  and  disordered  imagination 
believed  it  was  bound  to  elevate  to  her 
throne.  Let  us  say  to  them,  that  there 
is  nothing  either  above  or  beyond  na- 
ture ;  let  us  teach  them  that  nature  is 
capable  of  producing,  without  any  for- 
eign aid,  all  those  phenomena  which 
they  admire,  all  the  benefits  which 
they  desire,  as  well  as  all  the  evils 
which  they  apprehend.  Let  us  inform 
them,  that  experience  will  conduct 
them  to  a  knowledge  of  this  nature ; 
that  she  takes  a  pleasure  in  unveiling 
herself  to  those  who  study  her ;  that  she 
discovers  her  secrets  to  those  who  by 
their  labour  dare  wrest  them  from,  her, 
and  that  she  always  rewards  elevation 
of  soul,  courage,  and  industry.  Let 
us  tell  them,  that  reason  alone  can 
render  them  happy ;  that  that  reason 
is  nothing  more  than  the  science  of 
nature  applied  to  the  conduct  of  men 
in  society ;  let  us  instruct  them  that 
those  phantoms  with  which  their  minds 
have  been  so  long  and  so  vainly  occu- 
pied, can  neither  procure  them  the  hap- 
piness which  they  demand  with  loud 
cries,  nor  avert  from  their  heads  those 
inevitable  evils  to  which  nature  has 
subjected  them,  and  which  reason 
ought  to  teach  them  to  support,  when 
they  cannot  avoid  them  by  natural 
means.  Let  us  teach  them  that  every 
thing  is  necessary  ;  that  their  benefits 
and  their  sorrows  are  the  effects  of 
a  nature,  who  in  all  her  works  follows 
laws  which  nothing  can  make  her  re- 
voke. In  short,'let  us  unceasingly  re- 
seat to  them,  that  it  is  in  rendering  their 
fellow-creatures  happy,  that  they  will 
themselves  arrive  at  a  felicity  which 
they  will  expect  in  vain  from  heav- 
en, when  the  earth  refuses  it  to  them. 
Nature  is  the  cause  of  every  thing ; 
she  is  self-existent ;  she  will  always 
exist ;  she  is  her  own  cause ;  her  mo- 
tion is  a  necessary  consequence  of  her 
necessary  existence ;  without  motion, 
we  could  have  no  conception  of  na- 
ture ;  under  this  collective  name  we 
designate  the  assemblage  of  matter 
acting  in  virtue  of  its  own  peculiar  en- 
ergies. This  granted,  for  what  pur- 
pose should  we  interpose  a  being  more 
incomprehensible  than  herself  to  ex- 
plain her  modes  of  action,  marvellous, 
ao  doubt,  to  every  one,  but  much  more 
so  to  those  who  have  not  studied  her  ? 
Will  men  be  more  advanced  or  more 


instructed  when  they  shall  be  told  that 
a  being  which  they  are  not  formed  to 
comprehend,  is  the  author  of  those  vis- 
ible effects,  the  natural  causes  of  which 
they  cannot  unravel?  In  short,  will 
the  unaccountable  being  which  they 
call  God,  enable  them  to  have  a  better 
knowledge  of  nature  which  is  acting 
perpetually  upon  them?* 

Indeed,  if  we  were  desirous  to  at- 
tach some  sense  to  the  word  God,  of 
which  mortals  form  such  false  and  such 
obscure  ideas,  we  should  find  that  it  can 
designate  only  active  nature,  or  the 
sum  total  or  the  unknown  powers 
which  animate  the  universe,  and  which 
oblige  beings  to  act  in  virtue  of  their 
own  peculiar  energies,  and,  conse- 
quently, according  to  necessary  and 
immutable  laws.  But,  in  this  case,  the 
word  God  will  only  be  synonymous  to 
destiny,  fatality,  necessity  ;  it  is  how- 
ever to  this  abstract  idea,  personified 
and  deified,  that  they  attribute  spirit' 
uality,  another  abstract  idea,  of  which 
we  cannot  form  any  conception.  It  is 
to  this  abstraction  that  is  assigned  in- 
telligence, wisdom,  goodness,  and  jus- 
tice, of  which  such  a  being  cannot  be 
the  subject.  It  is  with  this  metaphys- 
ical idea,  as  it  is  pretended,  that  the 
beings  of  the  human  species  have  di- 
rect relation.  It  is  to  this  idea,  person- 
ified, deified,  humanized,  spiritualized, 
decorated  with  the  most  incompatible 
qualities,  to  which  are  attributed  will, 
passions,  desires,  &c.  It  is  this  per- 
sonified idea  which  is  made  to  speak 
in  the  different  revelations  which  are 
announced  in  every  country  as  emana- 
ting from  heaven ! 

Every  thing  proves  to  us,  then,  that 
it  is  not  out  of  nature  we  ought  to  seek 
the  Divinity.  When  we  shall  be  dispos- 
ed to  have  an  idea  of  him,  let  us  say 
that  nature  is  God;  let  us  say  that  na- 
ture contains  every  thing  we  can  have 
a  knowledge  of,  since  it  is  the  assem- 
blage of  all  the  beings  capable  of  act- 
ing upon  us,  and  which  can,  conse- 
quently, be  interesting  to  us.  Let  us 
say,  that  it  is  this  nature  which  does 
every  thing  ;  that  that  which  she  does 
not  do,  is  impossible  to  be  done ;  that 
that  which  is  said  to  exist  out  of  her 


*  Let  us  say,  with  Cicero :  Magna  stultitia 
est  earum  rcrum  deosfacere  effcctores,  causa-i 
rerum  non  quacrere.  Cic.  de  divinitat.  lib.  ii. 


246 


OF  DEISM,  OPTIMISM.  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


does  not  exist,  and  cannot  have  exist- 
ence ;  seeing  that  there  can  be  nothing 
beyond  the  great  whole.  In  short,  let 
us  say,  that  those  invisible  powers, 
which  the  imagination  has  made  the 
movers  of  the  universe,  either  are  no 
-more  than  the  powers  of  acting  nature, 
or  are  nothing. 

If  we  have  only  an  incomplete  know- 
ledge of  nature  and  her  ways,  if  we 
have  only  superficial  and  imperfect 
ideas  of  matter,  why  should  we  flatter 
ourselves  with  knowing  or  having  any 
certain  ideas  of  a  being  much  more  fu- 
gitive and  more  difficult  to  compass  in 
thought  than  the  elements,than  the  con- 
stituent principles  of  bodies,  than  their 
primitive  properties,  than  their  modes 
of  acting  and  existing  ?  If  we  cannot 
recur  to  the  first  cause,  let  us  content 
ourselves  with  second  causes,  and  those 
effects  which  experience  shows  us ;  let 
us  gather  true  and  known  facts ;  they 
will  suffice  to  make  us  judge  of  that 
which  we  know  not ;  let  us  confine 
ourselves  to  the  feeble  glimmerings  of 
truth  with  which  our  senses  furnish  us, 
since  we  have  no  means  whereby  to  ac- 
quire greater. 

Do  not  let  us  take  for  real  sciences 
those  which  have  no  other  basis  than 
our  imagination ;  they  can  only  be  vi- 
sionary.    Let  us  cling  to  nature  which 
we  see,  which  we  feel,  which  acts  up- 
on us,  of  which,  at  least,  we  know  the 
general  laws.     If  we  are  ignorant  of 
the  secret  principles  which  she  employs 
in  her  complicated  works,  we  are  at 
least  certain  that  she  acts  in  a  perma- 
nent, uniform,  analogous  and  necessary 
manner.     Let  us  then  observe  this  na- 
ture ;  let  us  never  quit  the  routine  which 
'  prescribes  for  us  ;  if  we  do,  we  shall 
infallibly  be  punished  with  numberless 
errours,  which  will  darken  our  mind, 
estrange  us  from  reason — the  necessa- 
ry consequence  of  which  will  be  count- 
less sorrows,  which  we  may  otherwise 
avoid.     Let  us   not  adore,  let  us  not 
flatter  after  the  manner  of  men,  a  na- 
ture who  is  deaf,  and  who  acts  neces- 
sarily, and  of  which  nothing  can  de- 
range the  course.     Do  not  let  us  im- 
plore a  whole  which  can  only  main- 
tain itself  by  the  discord  of  elements, 
from   whence  the  universal  harmony 
and  the  stability  of  the  whole  has  its 
birth.     Let  us  consider  that   we  are 
sensible  parts  of  a  whole  destitute  of 


'eeling,  in  which  all  the  forms  and  the 
combinations  are  destroyed  after  they 
are  born,  and  have  subsisted  for  a  long- 
er or  shorter  time.  Let  us  look  upon 
nature  as  an  immense  laboratory  which 
ontains  every  thing  necessary  for  her 
to  act  and  to  produce  all  those  works 
which  are  displayed  to  our  sight.  Let 
us  acknowledge  her  power  to  be  inhe- 
rent in  her  essence.  Do  not  let  us  at- 
tribute her  works  to  an  imaginary  cause 
which  has  no  other  existence  than  in 
our  brain.  Let  us  rather  forever  ban- 
ish from  our  mind  a  phantom  calcula- 
ted to  disturb  it,  and  to  prevent  our 
pursuing  the  simple,  natural,  and  cer- 
tain means  which  can  conduct  us  to 
happiness.  Let  us,  then,  restore  this 
nature,  so  long  mistaken,  to  her  legiti- 
mate rights  :  let  us  listen  to  her  voice, 
of  which  reason  is  the  faithful  interpre- 
ter ;  let  us  silence  that  enthusiasm  and 
imposture  which,  unfortunately,  have 
drawn  us  aside  from  the  only  worship 
suitable  to  intelligent  beings. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Of  Theism  or  Deism  ;  of  the  System  of  Op- 
timism; and  of  Final  Causes. 

VERY  few  men  have  the  courage  to 
examine  the  God  which  every  one  is 
in  agreement  to  acknowledge ;  there  is 
scarcely  any  one  who  dares  to  doubt 
his  existence  although  it  has  never  been 
proved  ;  each  receives  in  infancy,  with- 
out any  examination,  the  vague  name 
of  God,  which  his  fathers  transmit  him, 
Avhich  they  consign  to  his  brain  with 
those  obscure  ideas  which  they  them- 
selves have  attached  to  it,  and  which 
every  thing  conspires  to  render  habitual 
in  him  :  nevertheless,  each  modifies  it 
in  his  own  manner ;  indeed,  as  we  have 
frequently  observed,  the  unsteady  no- 
tions of  an  imaginary  being  cannot  be 
the  same  in  all  the  individuals  of  the 
human  species  ;  each  man  has  his  mode 
of  considering  him  :  each  man  makes 
to  himself  a  God  in  particular,  after  his 
own  peculiar  temperament,  his  natural 
dispositions,  his  imagination,  more  or 
less  exalted,  his  individual  circumstan- 
ces, the  prejudices  he  has  received,  and 
the  mode  in  which  he  is  affected  at 
different  times.  The  contented  and 
healthy  man  does  not  see  his  God  with 
the  same  eyes  as  the  man  who  is  cha- 


OF  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


247 


grinecl  and  sick ;  the  man  who  has  a 
heated  blood,  an  ardent  imagination,  or 
is  subject  to  bile,  does  not  see  him  un- 
der the  same  traits  as  he  who  enjoys  a 
more  peaceable  soul,  who  has  a  cooler 
imagination,  who  is  of  a  more  phleg- 
matic character.  This  is  not  all :  even 
the  same  man  does  not  see  him  in  the 
same  manner  in  the  different  periods  of 
his  life  ;  his  God  undergoes  all  the  va- 
riations of  his  own  machine,  all  the 
revolutions  of  his  own  temperament, 
those  continual  vicissitudes  which  his 
being  experiences.  The  idea  of  the 
Divinity,  whose  existence  is  looked  up- 
on as  so  demonstrable,  this  idea  which 
is  pretended  to  be  innate  or  infused  in 
all  men,  this  idea,  of  which  we  are  as- 
sured that  the  whole  of  nature  is  earn- 
est in  furnishing  us  with  proofs,  is  per- 
petually fluctuating  in  the  mind  of  eac*h 
individual,  and  varies,  at  each  moment, 
in  all  the  beings  of  the  human  species  ; 
there  are  not  two  who  admit  precisely 
the  same  God,  there  is  not  a  single  one 
who,  in  different  circumstances,  does 
not  see  him  variously. 

Do  not,  then,  let  us  be  surprised  at 
the  weakness  of  those  proofs  which  are 
furnished  of  the  existence  of  a  being 
Avhich  men  will  never  see  but  within 
themselves.  Do  not  let  us  be  aston- 
ished at  seeing  them  so  little  in  har- 
mony with  each  other  upon  the  various 
systems  which  they  set  up  relatively 
to  him,  upon  the  worship  which  they 
render  to  him ;  their  disputes  on  his 
account,  the  want  of  just  inference  in 
their  opinions,  the  little  consistency 
and  connexion  in  their  systems,  the 
contradictions  in  which  they  are  un- 
ceasingly falling  when  they  would 
speak  of  him,  the  incertitude  in  which 
their  mind  finds  itself  every  time  it  is 
occupied  with  this  being  so  arbitrary, 
ought  not  to  appear  strange  to  us ;  they 
must  necessarily  dispute  when  they 
reason  upon  an  object  seen  diversely 
under  various  circumstances,  and  upon 
which  there  is  not  a  single  man  that 
can  be  constantly  in  accord  with  him- 
self. 

All  men  are  agreed  upon  those  ob- 
jects which  they  are  enabled  to  submit 
to  the  test  of  experience  ;  we  do  not 
hear  any  disputes  upon  the  principles 
of  geometry ;  those  truths  which  are 
evident  and  demonstrated,  never  vary 
in  our  mind  ;  we  never  doubt  that  the 


part  is  less  than  the  whole,  that  two 
and  two  make  four,  that  benevolence  is 
an  amiable  quality,  that  equity  is  ne- 
cessary to  man  in  society.  But  we 
find  nothing  but  disputes,  but  incerti- 
tude, but  variations,  upon  all  those  sys- 
tems which  have  the  Divinity  for  their 
object ;  we  see  no  harmony  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  theology ;  the  existence  of 
God,  which  is  announced  to  us  every 
where  as  an  evident  and  demonstrated 
truth,  is  only  so  for  those  who  have  not 
examined  the  proofs  upon  which  it  is 
founded.  These  proofs  frequently  ap- 
pear false  or  feeble  to  those  themselves 
who,  otherwise,  do  not  by  any  means 
doubt  of  his  existence ;  the  inductions 
or  the  corollaries  Avhich  are  drawn 
from  this  pretended  truth,  said  to  be  so 
clear,  are  not  the  same  in  two  nations 
or  even  in  two  individuals ;  the  think- 
ers of  all  ages  and  of  all  countries  un- 
ceasingly quarrel  amongst  themselves 
upon  religion,  upon  their  theological  hy- 
pothesis, upon  the  fundamental  truths 
which  serve  for  the  basis  of  them,  upon 
the  attributes  and  the  qualities  of  a  God 
with  whom  they  vainly  occupy  them- 
selves, and  the  idea  of  whom  varies 
continually  in  their  own  brain. 

These  disputes  and  these  perpetual 
variations  ought  at  least  to  convince  us, 
that  the  ideas,  of  the  Divinity  have  nei- 
ther the  evidence  nor  the  certitude 
which  are  attributed  to  them,  and  that 
it  may  be  permitted  to  doubt  the  reality 
of  a  being  which  men  see  so  diversely, 
and  upon  which  they  are  never  in  ac- 
cord, and  of  which  the  image  so  often 
varies  with  themselves.  In  despite  of 
all  the  efforts  and  the  subtilties  of  its 
most  ardent  defenders,  the  existence  of 
a  God  is  not  even  probable,  and  if  it 
should  be,  can  all  the  probabilities  of 
the  world  acquire  the  force  of  a  demon- 
stration 1  Is  it  not  astonishing,  that  the 
existence  of  the  being  the  most  impor- 
tant to  believe  and  to  know  has  not 
even  probability  in  its  favour,  whilst 
truths  much  less  important,  are  clearly 
demonstrated  to  us  ?  Should  it  not  be 
concluded  from  this  that  no  man  is  fully 
assured  of  the  existence  of  a  being 
which  he  sees  so  subject  to  vary  within 
himself,  and  which  for  two  days  in  suc- 
cession does  not  present  itself  under 
the  same  traits  to  his  mind  ?  There  is 
nothing  short  of  evidence  that  can  fully 
convince  us.  A  truth  is  not  evident  to 


248 


OF  DEISM,   OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


us,  but  when  constant  experience  and 
reiterated  reflections  always  show  it 
to  us  under  the  same  point  of  view. 
From  the.  constant  relation  which  is 
made  by  well-constituted  senses,  re- 
sults that  evidence  and  that  certitude 
which  can  alone  produce  full  convic- 
tion. What  becomes,  then,  of  the  cer- 
titude of  the  existence  of  the  Divini- 
ty ?  Can  his  discordant  qualities  have 
existence  in  the  same  subject  ?  And 
has  a  being,  who  is  nothing  but  aheap 
of  contradictions,  probability  in  his  fa- 
vour ?  Can  those  who  admit  it,  be  con- 
vinced of  it  themselves?  And,  in  this 
case,  ought  they  not  to  permit  that  we 
should  doubt  those  pretended  truths, 
which  they  announce  as  demonstrated 
and  as  evident,  whilst  they  themselves 
feel  that  they  are  wavering  in  their 
own  heads?  The  existence  of  this 
God  and  of  the  divine  attributes  cannot 
be  things  demonstrated  for  any  man 
on  earth ;  his  non-existence  and  the 
impossibility  of  the  incompatible  qual- 
ities which  theology  assigns  him  will 
be  evidently  demonstrated  to  whoever 
shall  be  disposed  to  feel  that  it  is  im- 
possible the  same  subject  can  unite 
those  qualities  which  reciprocally  de- 
stroy each  other,  and  which  all  the  ef- 
forts of  the  human  mind  will  never  be 
able  to  conciliate.* 


*  CICERO  has  said,  Plura  discrepantia  vera 
esse  non  possunt.  From  whence  we  see, 
that  no  reasoning,  no  revelation,  no  miracle 
can  render  that  false  which  experience  has 
demonstrated  to  us  as  evident ;  that  there  is 
nothing  short  of  a  confusion,  an  overturning  of 
the  brains,  that  can  cause  contradictions  to 
be  admitted.  According  to  the  celebrated 
Wolfe,  in  his  Ontology,  §  99 :  Possibile  est 
quod  nullum  in  se  repugnantium  habet,  quod 
contradictione  caret.  After  this  definition  the 
existence  of  God  must  appear  impossible,  see- 
ing that  there  is  a  contradiction  in  saying 
that  a  spirit  without  extent  can  exist  in  ex- 
tension, or  move  matter  which  has  extent. — 
Saint  Thomas,  says  that  ens  est  quod  non 
repugnat  esse.  This  granted,  a  God,  such  as 
he  is  denned  to  be,  is  only  a  being  of  the  im- 
agination, since  he  can  have  existence  no 
where.  According  to  Bilfinger,  de  deo.  ani- 
ma  et  mundo,  %  5,  Essentia  est  primus  re- 
rum  conccptus  constitutive  vel  quidditativus, 
cujus  ope  cretera,  quae  de  re  aliqua  dicentur, 
demonstrari  possunt.  In  this  case,  could  it 
not  be  demanded  of  him,  if  any  one  has  an 
idea  of  the  divine  essence  1  Which  is  the  un- 
derstanding that  constitutes  God  that  which 
he  is,  and  whence  flows  the  demonstration  of 
every  thing  which  is  said  of  him  ?  Ask  a  the- 


However  it  may  be  with  these  qual- 
ities, whether  irreconcilable,  or  totally 
incomprehensible,  which  the  theologi- 
ans assign  to  a  being  already  inconceiv- 
able by  himself,  whom  they  make  the 
author  or  the  architect  of  the  world,what 
can  result,  to  the  human  species  in  sup- 
posing him  to  have  intelligence  and 
views  ?  Can  a  universal  intelligence, 
whose  care  ought  to  be  extended  to 
every  thing  that  exists,  have  relations 
more  direct  and  more  intimate  with 
man,  who  only  forms  an  insensible  por- 
tion of  the  great  whole  ?  Is  it,  then, 
to  make  joyful  the  insects  and  the  ants 
of  his  garden,  that  the  Monarch  of  the 
universe  has  constructed  and  embellish- 
ed his  habitation  ?  Should  we  be  bet- 
ter capacitated  to  have  a  knowledge  of 
his  projects,  to  divine  his  plan,  to  mea- 
sure his  wisdom  with  our  feeble  eyes, 
and  could  we  better  judge  of  his  works 
from  our  own  narrow  views  ?  The  ef- 
fects, good  or  bad,  favourable  or  preju- 
dicial to  ourselves,  which  we  may  ima- 
gine to  emanate  from  his  omnipotence 
and  from  his  providence,  will  they  be 
less  the  necessary  effects  of  his  wis- 
dom, of  his  justice,  of  his  eternal  de- 
crees ?  In  this  case,  can  we  suppose 
that  a  God  so  wise,  so  just,  so  intelli- 
gent, will  change  his  plan  for  us  ? 
Overcome  by  our  prayers  and  our  ser- 
vile homage,  will  he,  to  please  us,  re- 
form his  immutable  decrees  ?  Will  he 
take  away  from  beings  their  essences 
and  their  properties  ?  Will  he  abrogate, 
by  miracles,  the  eternal  laws  of  a  na- 
ture, in  which  his  wisdom  and  his 
goodness  are  admired  ?  Will  he  cause 
that  in  our  favour,  fire  shall  cease  to 
burn  when  we  shall  approach  it  too 
nearly  ?  Will  he  so  order  it,  that  fever, 
that  the  gout  shall  cease  to  torment  us 
when  we  shall  have  amassed  those  hu- 
mours of  which  these  infirmities  are 
the  necessary  consequence  ?  Will  he 
prevent  an  edifice  that  tumbles  in  ruins 
from  crushing  us  by  its  fall,  when  we 
shall  pass  beside  it  ?  Will  our  vain  cries 
and  the  most  fervent  supplications,  pre- 
vent our  country  from  being  unhappy, 

ologian  if  God  can  commit  crime  1  He  will 
tell  you  no,  seeing  that  crime  is  repugnant  to 
justice,  which  is  nis  essence.  But  tnis  theo- 
logian does  not  see  thnt,  in  supposing  God  a 
spirit,  it  is  full  as  repugnant  to  his  essence  to 
have  created  or  to  move  matter,  as  to  commit 
a  crime  repugnant  to  his  justice. 


OP  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,  AND    FINAL   CAUSES. 


249 


when  it  shall  be  devastated  by  an  am- 
bitious conqueror,  or  governed  by  ty- 
rants who  oppress  it  ? 

If  this  infinite  intelligence  is  always 
obliged  to  give  a  free  course  to  those 
events  which  his  wisdom  has  prepared ; 
if  nothing  happens  in  this  world  but 
after  his  impenetrable  designs,  we  have 
nothing  to  ask  of  him  ;  Ave  should  be 
madmen  to  oppose  ourselves  to  them  ; 
we  should  offer  an  insult  to  his  pru- 
•  dence  if  we  were  desirous  to  regu- 
late them.  Man  must  not  flatter  him- 
self with  being  wiser  than  his  God, 
with  being  capable  of  engaging  him  to 
change  his  will ;  with  having  the  pow- 
er to  determine  him  to  take  other  means 
than  those  which  he  has  chosen  to  ac- 
complish his  decrees  ;  an  intelligent 
God  can  only  have  taken  those  meas- 
ures which  are  the  most  just,  and  those 
means  which  are  the  most  certain,  to 
arrive  at  his  end ;  if  he  were  capable  of 
changing  them,  he  neither  could  be 
called  wise,  immutable,  nor  provident. 
If  God  did  suspend,  for  an  instant,  those 
laws  which  he  himself  fixed,  if  he 
could  change  any  thing  in  his  plan,  it 
is  because  he  could  not  have  foreseen 
the  motives  of  this  suspension,  or  of 
this  change  ;  if  he  had  not  made  these 
motives  enter  into  his  plan,  it  is  that  he 
had  not  foreseen  them  ;  if  he  has  fore- 
seen them,  without  making  them  enter 
into  his  plan,  it  is  that  he  has  not  been 
able.  Thus,  in  whatever  manner  these 
things  are  contemplated,  the  prayers 
which  men  address  to  the  Divinity,  and 
the  different  worships  which  they  ren- 
der him,  always  suppose  they  believe 
they  have  to  deal  with  a  being  whose 
wisdom  and  providence  are  small,  and 
capable  of  change,  or  who,  in  despite  of 
his  omnipotence,  cannot  do  that  which 
he  is  willing,  or  that  which  would  be 
expedient  for  men,  for  whom,  neverthe- 
less, it  is  pretended  that  he  has  created 
the  world. 

It  is,  however,  upon  these  notions,  so 
badly  directed,  that  are  founded  all  the 
religions  of  the  earth.  We  every  where 
see  man  on  his  knees  before  a  wise 
God,  of  whom  he  strives  to  regulate 
the  conduct,  to  avert  the  decrees,  to  re- 
form the  plans  ;  every  where  man  is 
occupied  with  gaining  him  to  his  in- 
terests, by  meannesses  and  presents  ; 
in  overcoming  his  justice  by  dint  of 
prayers,  by  practices,  by  ceremonies, 

No.  VIII.— 32 


and  by  expiations,  which  he  believes 
will  make  him  change  his  resolutions ; 
every  where  man  supposes  that  he  can 
offend  his  creator,  and  disturb  his  eter- 
nal felicity  ;  every  where  man  is  pros- 
trate before  an  omnipotent  God,  who 
finds  himself  in  the  impossibility  of 
rendering  his  creatures  such  as  they 
ought  to  be,  to  accomplish  his  divine 
views,  and  fulfil  his  wisdom! 

We  see,  then,  that  all  the  religions 
of  the  world  are  only  founded  upon 
those  manifest  contradictions  into 
which  men  will  fall  every  time  they 
mistake  nature,  and  attribute  the  good 
or  the  evil  which  they  experience  at  her 
hands,  to  an  intelligent  cause,  distin- 
guished from  herself,  of  which  they 
will  never  be  able  to  form  to  them- 
selves any  certain  ideas.  Man  will 
always  be  reduced,  as  we  have  so  fre- 
quently repeated,  to  the  necessity  of 
making  a  man  of  his  God ;  but  man  is 
a  changeable  being,  whose  intelligence 
is  limited,  whose  passions  vary,  who, 
placed  in  diverse  circumstances,  ap- 
pears to  be  frequently  in  contradiction 
with  himself:  thus,  although  man  be- 
lieves he  does  honour  to  his  God,  in 
giving  him  his  own  peculiar  qualities, 
he  does  no  more  than  lend  him  his  in- 
constancy, his  weakness,  and  his  vices. 
The  theologians,  or  the  fabricators  of 
the  divinity,  may  distinguish,  subtilize, 
and  exaggerate  his  pretended  perfec- 
tions ;  render  them  as  unintelligible  as 
they  please,  it  will  ever  be,  that  a  be- 
ing who  is  irritated  and  is  appeased 
by  prayers,  is  not  immutable ;  that  a 
being  who  is  offended,  is  neither  omni- 
potent nor  perfectly  happy ;  that  a  be- 
ing who  does  not  prevent  the  evil  he 
can  restrain,  consents  to  evil :  that  a 
being  who  gives  liberty  to  sin,  has  re- 
solved, in  his  eternal  decrees,  that  sin 
should  be  committed ;  that  a  being 
who  punishes  those  faults  which  he 
has  permitted  to  be  done,  is  sovereign- 
ly unjust  and  irrational ;  that  an  infi- 
nite being  who  contains  qualities  infi- 
nitely contradictory,  is  an  impossible 
being,  and  is  only  a  chimera. 

Let  us  then  be  no  longer  told,  that 
the  existence  of  God  is  at  least  a  prob- 
lem. A  God,  such  as  the  theologians 
depict  him,  is  totally  impossible;  all 
the  qualities  which  can  be  assigned  to 
him,  all  the  perfections  with  which 
they  shall  embellish  him,  will  still  be 


260 


OF  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,   AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


found  every  moment  in  contradiction. 
As  for  the  abstract  and  negative  quali- 
ties with  which  they  may  invest  him, 
they  will  always  be  unintelligible,  and 
will  only  prore  the  inutility  of  the  ef- 
forts of  the  human  mind,  when  it 
wishes  to  define  beings  which  have  no 
existence.  As  soon  as  men  believe  them- 
selves greatly  interested  in  knowing  a 
thing,  they  labour  to  form  to  themselves 
an  idea  of  it;  if  they  find  great  obstacles, 
or  even  an  impossibility  of  enlighten- 
ing their  ignorance,  then  the  small 
success  that  attends  their  researches, 
disposes  them  to  credulity ;  hence  crafty 
knaves  or  enthusiasts  profit  of  this  cre- 
dulity to  make  their  inventions  or  their 
reveries  (which  they  deliver  out  as  per- 
manent truths,  of  which  it  is  not  permit- 
ted to  doubt)  pass  current.  It  is  thus 
that  ignorance,  despair,  idleness,  the 
want  of  reflecting  habits,  place  the  hu- 
man species  in  a  state  of  dependence 
on  those  who  are  charged  with  the  care 
of  building  up  those  systems  upon 
those  objects  of  which  he  has  no  one 
idea.  As  soon  as  there  is  a  question 
of  the  Divinity  and  of  religion,  that  is 
to  say,  of  objects  of  which  it  is  impos- 
sible to  tomprehend  any  thing,  men 
reason  in  a  very  strange  mode,  or  are 
the  dupes  of  very  deceitful  reasonings. 
As  soon  as  men  see  themselves  in  a 
total  impossibility  of  understanding 
what  is  said,  they  imagine  that  those 
who  speak  to  them  are  better  acquaint- 
ed with  the  things  of  which  they  dis- 
course than  themselves ;  these  do  not 
fail  to  repeat  to  them  that  the  most 
certain  way  is  to  agree  with  that 
which  they  tell  them,  to  allow  them- 
selves to  be  guided  by  them,  and  to 
shut  their  eyes :  they  menace  them  with 
the  anger  of  the  irritated  phantom,  if 
they  refuse  to  believe  what  they  tell 
them;  and  this  argument,  although 
it  only  supposes  the  thing  in  question, 
closes  the  mouth  of  poor  mortals,  who, 
convinced  by  this  victorious  reasoning, 
fear  to  perceive  the  palpable  contradic- 
tions of  the  doctrines  announced  to 
them — blindly  agree  with  their  guides, 
not  doubting  that  they  have  much 
clearer  ideas  of  those  marvellous  ob- 
jects with  which  they  unceasingly 
entertain  them,  and  on  which  their 
profession  obliges  them  to  meditate. 
The  uninformed  believes  his  priests 
have  more  senses  than  himself,  he 


takes  them  for  divine  men,  or  demi- 
gods. He  sees  in  that  which  he  adores 
only  what  the  priests  tell  him,  and 
from  every  thing  which  they  say  of 
him,  it  results,  to  every  man  who 
thinks,  that  God  is  only  a  being  of  the 
imagination,  a  phantom  clothed  with 
those  qualities  which  the  priests  have 
judged  suitable  to  give  him,  to  redouble 
the  ignorance,  the  incertitude,  and  the 
fear  of  mortals.  It  is  thus  the  author- 
ity of  the  priests  decide,  without  ap- 
peal, on  the  thing,  which  is  useful  only 
to  the  priesthood. 

When  we  shall  be  disposed  to  recur 
to  the  origin  of  things,  we  shall  always 
find  that  it  is  ignorance  and  fear  which 
have  created  Gods ;  that  it  is  ima- 
gination, enthusiasm,  and  imposture, 
which  have  embellished  or  disfigured 
them ;  that  it  is  weakness  that  adores 
them,  that  it  is  credulity  which  nour- 
ishes them,  that  it  is  habit  which  re- 
spects them,  that  it  is  tyranny  who 
sustains  them,  to  the  end  that  tyrants 
may  profit  by  the  blindness  of  men. 

We  are  unceasingly  told  of  the  ad- 
vantages that  result  to  men,  from  the 
belief  of  a  God.  We  shall  presently 
examine  if  these  advantages  be  as  real 
as  they  are  said  to  be  ;  in  the  mean 
time,  let  us  ascertain  whether  the  opin- 
ion of  the  existence  of  a  God  be  art 
errour  or  a  truth  ?  If  it  is  an  errour,  it 
cannot  be  useful  to  the  human  species  ; 
if  it  is  a  truth,  it  ought  to  be  suseep- 
tible  of  proofs  so  clear  as  to  be  com- 
passed by  all  men,  to  whom  this  truth 
is  supposed  to  be  necessary  and  advan- 
tageous. On  the  other  hand,  the  utility 
of  an  opinion  does  not  render  it  more 
certain  on  that  account.  This  suffices 
to  reply  to  Doctor  Clarke,  who  asks, 
if  it  is  not  a  tiling  very  desirable,  and 
which  any  wise  man  would  wish  to- 
be  true,  for  the  great  benefit  and  hap- 
piness of  men,  that  there  were  a  God, 
an  intelligent  and  wise,  a  just  and 
good  being,  to  govern  the  -world  ? 
We  shall  say  to  him,  first,  that  the- 
supposed  author  of  a  nature  in  which 
we  are  obliged  to  see,  at  each  instant, 
confusion  by  the  side  of  order,  wicked- 
ness by  the  side  of  goodness,  folly  by 
the  side  of  wisdom,  justice  by  the  side 
of  injustice,  can  no  more  be  qualified 
to  fce  good,  wise,  intelligent,  and  just, 
than  to  be  wicked,  irrational,  and  per- 
verse ;  at  least,  as  far  as  the  two  priu- 


OF  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,   AND   FINAL  CAUSES. 


2S1 


ttptes  in  nature  are  equal  in  power,  of 
which  the  one  unceasingly  destroys 
the  works  of  the  other.  We  shall  say, 
secondly,  that  the  benefit  which  can 
result  from  a  supposition,  neither  ren- 
ders it  either  more  certain,  or  more 
probable.  Indeed,  where  should  we 
be,  if,  because  a  thing  would  be  useful, 
we  went  so  far  as  to  conclude  from  it 
that  it  really  existed?  We  shall  say, 
thirdly,  that  every  thing  which  has 
been  related  until  the  present  moment, 
proves,  that  it  is  repugnant  to  all  com- 
mon notions,  and  impossible  to  be  be- 
lieved, that  there  should  be  a  being  as- 
sociated with  nature.  We  shall  fur- 
ther say,  that  it  is  impossible  to  believe 
very  sincerely  the  existence  of  a  being 
of  which  we  have  not  any  real  idea, 
and  to  which  we  cannot  attach  any 
that  does  not  instantly  destroy  it.  Can 
we  believe  the  existence  of  a  being  of 
which  we  can  affirm  nothing,  who  is 
only  a  heap  of  negations  of  every  thing 
of  which  we  have  a  knowledge  ?  In 
short,  is  it  possible  firmly  to  believe  the 
existence  of  a  being  upon  which  the 
human  mind  cannot  fix  any  judgment 
which  is  not  found  to  be  instantly 
contradicted  ? 

But  the  happy  enthusiast,  when  the 
soul  is  sensible  of  its  enjoyments,  and 
when  the  softened  imagination  has  oc- 
casion to  paint  to  itself  a  seducing 
object  to  which  it  can  render  thanks 
for  its  pretended  kindness,  will  ask, 
"  Wherefore  deprive  me  of  a  God 
whom  I  see  under  the  character  of  a 
sovereign,  filled  with  wisdom  and 
goodness  'I  What  comfort  do  I  not 
find  in  figuring  to  myself  a  powerful, 
intelligent,  and  good  monarch,  of  whom 
I  am  the  favourite,  who  occupies  him- 
self with  my  well-being,  who  unceas- 
ingly watches  over  my  safety,  who 
administers  to  my  wants,  who  consents 
that  under  him  I  command  the  whole 
of  nature  1  I  believe  I  behold  him  un- 
ceasingly diffusing  his  benefits  on  man  ; 
I  see  his  Providence  labouring  for  him 
without  relaxation  ;  he  covers  the  earth 
with  verdure,  and  loads  the  trees  with 
delicious  fruits  to  gratify  his  palate  ; 
he  fills  the  forest  with  animals  suitable 
to  nourish  him ;  he  suspends  over  his 
head  planets  and  stars,  to  enlighten 
him  during  the  day,  to  guide  his  un- 
certain steps  during  the  night ;  he  ex- 
tends around  him  the  azure  firmament ; 


to  rejoice  his  eyes,  he  decorates  the 
meadows  with  flowers ;  he  washes  his 
residence  with  fountains,  with  rivulets, 
and  with  rivers.  Ah !  suffer  me  to 
thank  the  author  of  so  many  benefits. 
Do  not  deprive  me  of  my  charming 
phantom ;  I  shall  not  find  my  illusions 
so  sweet  in  a  severe  and  rigid  neces- 
sity, in  a  blind  and  inanimate  matter, 
in  a  nature  destitute  of  intelligence 
and  feeling." 

"  Wherefore,"  the  unfortunate  will 
say,  from  whom  his  destiny  has  rigor- 
ously withheld  those  benefits  which 
have  been  lavished  on  so  many  others, 
"  Wherefore  ravish  from  me  an  errour 
that  is  dear  to  me  ?  Wherefore  annihi- 
late to  me  a  God,  whose  consoling 
idea  dries  up  the  source  of  my  tears, 
and  serves  to  calm  my  sorrows  ? — 
Wherefore  deprive  me  of  an  object, 
which  I  represent  to  myself  as  a  com- 
passionate and  tender  father,  who  re- 
proves me  in  this  world,  but  into  whose 
arms  I  throw  myself  with  confidence, 
when  the  whole  of  nature  appears  to 
have  abandoned  me  ?  Supposing  even 
that  this  God  is  no  more  than  a  chimera, 
the  unhappy  have  occasion  for  him,  to 
guaranty  them  from  a  frightful  despair: 
is  it  not  inhuman  and  cruel  to  be  desi- 
rous to  plunge  them  into  a  vacuum,  by 
seeking  to  undeceive  them  ?  Is  it  not 
a  useful  errour,  preferable  to  those 
truths  which  deprive  the  mind  of  every 
consolation,  and  which  do  not  hold 
forth  any  relief  from  its  sorrows  ?" 

No  !  I  shall  reply  to  these  enthusi- 
asts, truth  can  never  render  you  un- 
happy ;  it  is  this  which  really  consoles 
us ;  it  is  a  concealed  treasure,  which, 
much  superior  to  those  phantoms  in- 
vented by  fear,  can  cheer  the  heart  and 
give  it  courage  to  support  the  burdens 
of  life  ;  it  elevates  the  mind,  it  renders 
it  active,  it  furnishes  it  with  means  to 
resist  the  attacks  of  fate,  and  to  com- 
bat, Avilh  success,  bad  fortune.  I  shall 
then  ask  them  upon  what  they  found 
this  goodness,  which  they  loolishly 
attribute  to  their  God  ?  But  this  God, 
I  shall  say  to  them,  is  he  then  benevo- 
lent to  all  men  1  For  one  mortal  who 
enjoys  abundance  and  the  favours  of 
fortune,  are  there  not  millions  who 
languish  in  want  and  misery  ?  Those 
who  take  for  model  the  order  on  which 
they  suppose  this  God  the  author,  are 
they  then  the  most  happy  in  thia 


252 


OF   DEISM,   OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL   CAUSES. 


world  7  The  goodness  of  this  being, 
to  some  favourite  individual,  does  it 
never  contradict  itself?  Even  those 
consolations  which  the  imagination 
seeks  in  his  bosom,  do  they  not  an- 
nounce misfortunes  brought  on  by  his 
decrees,  and  of  which  he  is  the  au- 
thor? Is  not  the  earth  covered  with 
unfortunates,  who  appear  to  come  upon 
it  only  to  suffer,  to  groan,  and  to  die  ? 
Does  this  divine  providence  give  itself 
up  to  sleep  during  those  contagions, 
those  plagues,  those  wars,  those  disor- 
ders, those  moral  and  physical  revolu- 
tions, of  which  the  human  race  is  con- 
tinually victim  ?  This  earth,  of  which 
the  fecundity  is  looked  upon  as  a  bene- 
fit from  heaven,  is  it  not  in  a  thousand 
places  dry,  barren,  and  inexorable  ? — 
Does  it  not  produce  poisons,  by  the 
side  of  the  most  delicious  fruits? — 
Those  rivers  and  those  seas,  which  are 
believed  to  be  made  to  water  our  abode, 
and  to  facilitate  our  commerce,  do  they 
not  frequently  inundate  our  fields,  over- 
turn our  dwellings,  and  carry  away 
men  and  their  flocks  ?*  In  short,  this 
God,  who  presides  over  the  universe, 
and  who  watches  unceasingly  for  the 
preservation  of  his  creatures,  does  he 
not  almost  always  deliver  them  up  to 
the  chains  of  many  inhuman  sove- 
reigns, who  make  sport  of  the  misery 
of  their  unhappy  subjects,  whilst  these 
unfortunates  vainly  address  themselves 
to  heaven,  that  their  multiplied  calami- 
ties may  cease,  which  are  visibly  due 
to  an  irrational  administration  and  not 
to  the  wrath  of  Heaven  ? 


*Nevertheless,  on  the  whole,  there  is  no  such 
a  thing  as  real  evil.  Insects  find  a  safe  re- 
treat in  the  ruins  of  the  palace  which  crushes 
man  in  its  fall ;  man  by  his  death  furnishes 
food  for  myriads  of  contemptible  insects, 
whilst  animals  are  destroyed  by  thousands 
that  he  may  increase  his  bulk,  and  linger  out 
for  a  season  a  feverish  existence.  The  nalcy- 
on,  delighted  with  the  tempest,  voluntarily 
mingles  with  the  storm  --rides  contentedly 
upon  the  surge ;  rejoiced  by  the  fearful  howl- 
ings  of  the  northern  blast,  plays  with  happy 
buoyancy  upon  the  foaming  billows,  that 
have  ruthlessly  dashed  in  pieces  the  vessel  of 
the  unfortunate  mariner,  who,  plunged  into 
an  abyss  of  misery,  with  tremulous  emotion 
clings  to  the  wreck — views  with  horrific  de- 
spair the  premature  destruction  of  his  indulg- 
ed hopes— sighs  deeply  at  the  thoughts  of 
home— with  aching  heart  thinks  of  the  cher- 
ished friends  his  streaming  eyes  will  never 
more  behold — in  agony  dwells  upon  the  faith- 
ful affection  of  an  adored  companion,  who 


The  unhappy  man,  who  seeks  con^ 
solation  in  the  arms  of  his  God,  ought 
at  least  to  remember  that  it  is  this  same 
God,  who  being  the  master  of  all,  dis- 
tributes the  good  and  the  evil :  if  na- 
ture is  believed  to  be  subjected  to  his 
supreme  orders,  this  God  is  as  frequent- 
ly unjust,  filled  with  malice,  with  im- 
prudence, with  irrationality,  as  with 
goodness,  wisdom,  and  equity.  If  the 
devotee,  less  prejudiced  and  more  con- 
sistent, would  reason  a  little,  he  would 
suspect  that  his  God  was  a  capricious 
God,  who  frequently  made  him  suffer ; 
he  would  not  seek  to  console  himself 
in  the  arms  of  his  executioner,  whom 
he  has  the  folly  to  mistake  for  a  friend 
or  for  his  father. 

Do  we  not,  indeed,  see  in  nature  a 
constant  mixture  of  good  and  evil  ?  To 
obstinately  see  only  the  good,  is  as  ir- 
rational as  only  to  perceive  the  evil. 
We  see  the  ca)m  succeed  to  the  storm, 
sickness  to  health,  and  peace  to  war. 
The  earth  produces  in  every  country 
plants  necessary  to  the  nourishment  of 
man,  and  plants  suitable  to  his  destruc- 
tion. Each  individual  of  the  human 
species  is  a  necessary  compound  of 
good  and  bad  qualities ;  all  nations 
present  us  with  the  variegated  specta- 
cle of  vices  and  virtue  ;  that  which  re- 
joices one  individual,  plunges  many 
others  into  mourning  and  sadness ; 
there  happens  no  event  that  has  not 
advantages  for  some,  and  disadvanta- 
ges for  others.  Nature,  considered  in 
its  whole,  shows  us  beings  alternately 
subjected  to  pleasure  and  grief,  born  to 
die,  and  exposed  to  those  continual  vi- 
cissitudes from  which  no  one  of  them  is 
exempt.  The  most  superficial  glance 
of  the  eye  will  suffice,  then  to  unde- 

will  never  again  repose  her  drooping  head  up- 
on his  manly  bosom — grows  wild  with  the 
appalling  remembrance  of  beloved  children 
his  weaned  arms  will  never  more  encircle  with 
parental  fondness ;  then  sinks  for  ever  the 
unhappy  victim  of  circumstances  that  fill 
with  glee  the  fluttering  bird,  who  sees  him 
yield  to  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  infuri- 
ate waves.  The  conqueror  displays  his  mili- 
tary skill,  fights  a  sanguinary  battle,  puts  his 
enemy  to  the  rout,  lays  waste  his  country, 
slaughters  thousands  of  his  fellows,  plunges 
whole  districts  into  tears,  fills  the  land  with 
the  moans  of  the  fatherless,  the  wailings  of 
the  widow,  in  order  that  the  crows  may  nave 
a  banquet — that  ferocious  beasts  may  glutton 
ously  gorge  themselves  with  human  gore- 
that  worms  may  riot  in  luxury ! 


OP  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


253 


ceive  us  as  to  the  idea  that  man  is  the 
final  cause  of  the  creation,  the  con- 
stant object  of  the  labours  of  nature,  or 
of  its  author,  to  whom  they  can  at- 
tribute, according  to  the  visible  state  ol 
things,  and  the  continual  revolutions 
of  the  human  race,  neither  goodness  nor 
malice ;  neither  justice  nor  injustice  ; 
neither  intelligence  norirrationality.  In 
short,  in  considering  nature  without 
prejudice,  we  shall  find  that  all  beings 
in  the  universe  are  equally  favoured,  and 
that  every  thing  which  exists,  under- 
goes the  necessary  laws  from  which  no 
being  can  be  exempted. 

Thus,  when  there  is  a  question  con- 
cerning an  agent  we  see  act  so  vari- 
ously as  nature,  or  as  its  pretended  mo- 
ver, it  is  impossible  to  assign  him  qual- 
ities according  to  his  works,  which  are 
sometimes  advantageous  and  some- 
times prejudicial  to  the  human  species  ; 
or  at  least,  each  man  will  be  obliged  to 
judge  of  him  after  the  peculiar  mode  in 
which  he  is  himself  affected  ;  there  will 
be  no  fixed  point  or  standard  in  the 
judgments  which  men  shall  form  of 
him ;  our  mode  of  judging  will  always 
be  founded  upon  our  mode  of  seeing 
and  of  feeling,  and  our  mode  of  feeling 
will  depend  on  our  temperament,  on 
our  organization,  on  our  particular  cir- 
cumstances, which  cannot  be  the  same 
in  all  the  individuals  of  our  species. 
These  different  modes  of  being  affected, 
then,  will  always  furnish  the  colours  of 
the  portraits  which  men  may  paint  to 
themselves  of  the  Divinity ;  consequent- 
ly these  ideas  cannot  be  either  fixed  or 
certain ;  the  inductions  which  they 
may  draw  from  them,  can  never  be 
either  constant  or  uniform  ;  each  will 
always  judge  after  himself,  and  will 
never  see  any  thing  but  himself,  or  his 
own  peculiar  situation,  in  his  God. 

This  granted,  men  who  are  content- 
ed, who  have  a  sensible  soul,  a  lively 
imagination,  will  paint  the  Divinity 
under  the  most  charming  traits ;  they 
will  believe  they  see  in  the  whole  of 
nature,  which  Avill  unceasingly  cause 
them  agreeable  sensations,  nothing  but 
proofs  of  benevolence  and  goodness ;  in 
their  poetical  ecstacy,  they  will  imagine 
they  perceive  every  where  the  impres- 
sion of  a  perfect  intelligence,  of  an  in- 
finite wisdom,  of  a  providence  tenderly 
occupied  with  the  well-being  of  man  ; 
self-love  joining  itself  to  these  exalted 


qualities,  will  put  the  finishing  hand  to 
their  persuasion  that  the  universe  is 
made  solely  for  the  human  race  ;  they 
will  strive,  in  imagination,  to  kiss  with 
transport  the  hand  from  whom  they  be- 
lieve they  receive  so  many   benefits; 
touched   with  these  favours,  gratified 
with  the  perfume  of  these  roses,  of 
which  they  do  not  see  the  thorns,  or 
which  their  ecstatic  delirium  prevents 
them  from  feeling,  they  will  think  they 
can  never  sufficiently  acknowledge  the 
necessary  effects,  which  they  look  up- 
on as  indubitable  proofs  of  the  divine 
predilection  for  man.     Inebriated  with 
these  prejudices,  enthusiasts  will  not 
perceive  those  sorrows  and  that  confu- 
sion of  which  the  universe  is  the  the- 
atre ;  or,  if  they  cannot  prevent  them- 
selves from  seeing  them,  they  will  be 
persuaded  that,  in  the  views  of  a  benev- 
olent providence,  these  calamities  are 
necessary  to  conduct  man  to  a  higher 
state  of  felicity  ;  the  reliance  which  they 
have  placed  in  the  Divinity,  upon  whom 
they   imagine   they   depend,    induces 
them  to  believe  that  man  only  suffers 
for  his  good,  and  that  this  being,  who 
is  fruitful  in  resources,  will  know  how 
to  make  him  reap  advantage  from  the 
evils   he   experiences    in   this   world. 
Their  mind,  thus  pre-occupied,    from 
thence  sees  nothing  that  does  not  ex- 
cite their  admiration,  their  gratitude, 
and  their  confidence  ;    even  those  ef- 
fects which  are  the  most  natural  and 
the  most  necessary,  appear  to  them  to  be 
miracles  of  benevolence  and  goodness ; 
obstinately   persisting    in  seeing  wis- 
dom and  intelligence  every  where,  they 
shut  their  eyes  to  the  disorders  which 
could  contradict  those  amiable  qualities 
they  attribute  to  the  being  with  whom 
their  hearts  are  engrossed;  the  most 
cruel   calamities,    the   most   afflicting 
events  to  the  human  race,  cease  to  ap- 
pear to  them  disorders,  and  only  furnish 
them  with  new  proofs  of  the  divine 
Derfections:  they  persuade  themselves 
:hat  what  appears  to  them  defective  or 
imperfect,  is  only  so  in  appearance  ; 
and  they  admire  the  wisdom  and  the 
Bounty  of  their  God,  even  in  those  ef- 
'ects  which  are  the  most  terrible,  and 
the  most  suitable  to  discourage  them. 
It  is,  without  doubt,  to  this  stupid 
ntoxication,  to  this  strange  infatuation, 
to  which  is  to  be  ascribed  the  system 
of  optimising  which  enthusiasts,  fur- 


254 


OP   DEISM,  OPTIMISM,   AND   FINAL  CAUSES. 


fclshed  with  a  romantic  imagination, 
appear  to  have  renounced  the  evidence 
of  their  senses,  and  thus  they  find,  that, 
even  for  man,  every  thing  is  good  in  a 
nature  where  the  good  is  found  con- 
stantly accompanied  with  evil,  and 
where  minds  less  prejudiced,  and  ima- 
ginations less  poetical,  would  judge 
that  every  thing  is  only  that  which  it 
can  be  ;  that  the  good  and  the  evil  are 
equally  necessary  ;  that  they  emanate 
from  the  nature  of  things,  and  not  from 
a  fictitious  hand,  which,  if  it  really  ex- 
isted, or  did  every  thing  that  we  see, 
could  be  called  wicked  with  as  much 
reason  as  he  is  inaptly"  said  to  be  filled 
with  goodness.  Besides,  to  be  ena- 
bled to  justify  providence  for  the  evils, 
the  vices,  and  the  disorders  which  we 
see  in  the  whole  which  is  supposed  to 
be  the  work  of  his  hands,  we  should 
know  the  aim  of  the  whole.  Now,  the 
whole  cannot  have  an  aim,  because,  if 
it  had  an  aim,  a  tendency,  an  end,  it 
would  no  longer  be  the  whole. 

We  shall  be  told,  that  the  disorders 
and  the  evils  which  we  see  in  this 
world,  are  only  relative  and  apparent, 
and  prove  nothing  against  divine  wis- 
dom and  goodness.  But  can  it  not  be 
replied,  that  the  so  much  boasted  bene- 
fits, and  he  marvellous  order,  upon 
which  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
God  are  founded,  are,  in  a  like  manner, 
only  relative  and  apparent  ?  It  is  uni- 
formly our  mode  of  feeling,  and  of  co- 
existing with  those  causes  by  which 
we  are  encompassed,  which  constitutes 
the  order  of  nature  with  relation  to  our- 
selves, and  which  authorizes  us  to  as- 
cribe wisdom  or  goodness  to  its  author ; 
ought  not  our  modes  of  feeling  and  of 
existing  authorize  us  to  call  that  dis- 
order which  injures  us,  and  to  ascribe 
imprudence  or  malice  to  the  being 
whom  we  shall  suppose  to  put  nature 
in  motion  ?  In  short,  that  which  we  see  I 
in  the  world  conspires  to  prove  that 
every  thing  is  necessary;  that  nothing 
is  done  by  chance  ;  that  all  the  events, 
good  or  bad,  whether  for  us,  whether 
for  beings  of  a  different  order,  are 
brought  about  by  causes,  acting  after 
certain  and  determinate  laws ;  and  that 
nothing  can  authorize  us  to  ascribe  any 
one  of  our  human  qualities  either  to  na- 
ture, or  to  the  motive-power  that  has 
been  given  to  her. 

With  respect  to  those  who  pretend 


that  the  supreme  wisdom  will  know 
how  to  draw  the  greatest  benefits  for 
us,  even  out  of  the  bosom  of  those  evils 
which  he  permits  us  to  experience  in' 
this  world,  we  shall  ask  them  if  they 
are  themselves  the  confidants  of  the 
Divinity ;  or  upon  what  they  found 
their  flattering  hopes?  They  will  tell 
us,  without  doubt,  that  they  judge  ot 
the  conduct  of  God  by  analogy ;  and 
that,  by  the  actual  proofs  of  his  wis- 
dom and  goodness,  they  have  a  just 
right  to  conclude  in  favour  of  his  future 
bounty  and  wisdom.  We  shall  reply 
to  them,  that  they  admit,  according  to 
these  gratuitous  suppositions,  that  the 
goodness  and  the  wisdom  of  their  God 
contradict  themselves  so  frequently  in 
this  world,  that  nothing  can  assure  them 
that  his  conduct  will  ever  cease  to  be 
the  same  \vith  respect  to  those  men 
who  experience  here  below  sometimes 
his  kindness  and  sometimes  his  disfa- 
vour. If,  in  despite  of  his  omnipotent 
goodness,  God  has  not  been  either  able 
or  willing  to  render  his  beloved  crea- 
tures completely  happy  in  this  world, 
what  reason  is  there  to  believe  that  he 
either  will  be  able  or  willing  to  do  it  in 
another? 

Thus,  this  language  only  founds  it- 
self upon  ruinous  hypotheses  which 
have  for  basis  only  a  prejudiced  ima- 
gination ;  it  only  shows  that  men,  once 
persuaded,  without  motives  and  with- 
out cause,  of  the  goodness  of  their  God, 
cannot  figure  to  themselves  that  he  will 
consent  to  render  his  creatures  con- 
stantly unhappy.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
what  real  and  known  good  do  we  see 
result  to  the  human  species  from  those 
sterilities,  from  those  famines,  from, 
those  contagions,  from  those  sanguinary 
combats,  which  cause  so  many  millions 
of  men  to  perish,  and  which  unceas- 
ingly depopulate  and  desolate  the  world 
Avhich  we  inhabit  ?  Is  there  any  one 
capable  to  ascertain  the  advantages 
which  result  from  all  those  evils  which 
besiege  us  on  all  sides?  Do  we  not 
see  daily,  beings  consecrated  to  mis- 
fortune from  the  moment  they  quit  the 
womb  of  their  mother,  until  that  in 
which  they  descend  into  the  silent 
grave,  who,  with  great  difficulty,  found 
time  to  respire,  and  lived  the  constant 
sport  of  affliction,  of  grief,  and  of  rever- 
ses of  fortune?  How,  or  when,  will 
this  God,  so  bountiful,  draw  good  from 


OP  DEISM,   OPTIMISM,   AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


255 


the  evils  which  he  causes  mankind  to 
suffer? 

The  most  enthusiastic  optimists,  the 
theists,  themselves,  the  partisans  of  na- 
tural religion,  (which  is  any  thing  but 
natural  or  founded  upon  reason,)  are, 
as  well  as  the  most  credulous  and  super- 
stitious, obliged  to  recur  to  the  system 
of  another  life,  to  exculpate  the  Divinity 
from  those  evils  which  he  decrees  to  be 
suffered  in  this  by  those  themselves 
whom  they  suppose  to  be  most  agreea- 
ble in  his  eyes.  Thus,  in  setting  forth 
the  idea  that  God  is  good  and  filled 
Avith  equity,  we  cannot  dispense  with 
admitting  a  long  scries  of  hypotheses 
which,  as  well  as  the  existence  of  this 
God,  have  only  imagination  for  a  basis, 
and  of  which  we  have  already  shown 
the  futility.  It  is  necessary  to  recur 
to  the  doctrine,  so  little  probable,  of  a 
future  life,  and  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  to  justify  the  Divinity ;  we  are 
obliged  to  say,  that  for  want  of  having 
been  able  or  willing  to  render  man  hap- 
py in  this  world,  he  will  procure  him 
an  unalterable  happiness  when  he  shall 
no  longer  exist,  or  when  he  shall  no 
longer  have  those  organs  by  the  aid 
of  which  he  is  enabled  to  enjoy  it  at 
present. 

And  after  all,  these  marvellous  hypo- 
theses are  insufficient  to  justify  the  Di- 
vinity for  his  wickedness  or  for  his 
transitory  injustice.  If  God  has  been 
unjust  and  cruel  for  an  instant,  God  has 
derogated,  at  least  for  that  moment, 
from  his  divine  perfections ;  then  he  is 
not  immutable ;  his  goodness  and  jus- 
tice are  then  subject  to  contradict  them- 
selves for  a  time ;  and,  in  this  case, 
who  can  guaranty  that  the  qualities 
Avhich  we  confide  in,  will  not  contra- 
dict themselves  even  in  a  future  life 
invented  to  exculpate  God  for  those 
digressions  which  he  permits  in  this 
world  ?  What  is  this  but  a  God  who 
is  perpetually  obliged  to  depart  from 
his  principles,  and  who  finds  himself 
unable  to  render  those  whom  he  loves 
happy,  without  unjustly  doing  them 
evil,  at  least  during  their  abode  here 
below  1  Thus,  to  justify  the  Divinity 
it  will  be  necessary  to  recur  to  other 
hypotheses ;  we  must  suppose  that 
man  can  offend  his  God,  disturb  the 
order  of  the  universe,  be  injurious  to 
the  felicity  of  a  being  sovereignly  hap- 
py, and  derange  the  designs  of  the  om- 


nipotent being.  To  reconcile  many 
things,  we  must  recur  to  the  system  of 
the  liberty  of  man.*  At  length,  we 
shall  find  ourselves  obliged  to  admit, 
one  after  another,  the  most  improbable, 
the  most  contradictory,  and  the  most 
false  ideas,  as  soon  as  we  admit  that 
the  universe  is  governed  by  an  intelli- 
gence filled  with  wisdom,  with  justice, 
and  with  goodness;  this  principle  alone, 
if  we  are  consistent,  is  sufficient  to  lead 
us  insensibly  into  the  grossest  absurd- 
ities. 

This  granted,  all  those  who  speak  of 
the  divine  goodness,  wisdom,  and  in- 
telligence, which  are  shown  in  the 
works  of  nature ;  who  offer  these  same 
works  as  incontestable  proofs  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  God,  or  of  a  perfect  agent, 
are  men  prejudiced  or  blinded  by  their 
own  imagination,  who  see  only  a  cor- 
ner of  the  picture  of  the  universe,  with- 
out embracing  the  whole.  Intoxicated 
with  the  phantom  which  their  mind  has 
formed  to  itself,  they  resemble  those 
lovers  who  do  not  perceive  any  defect 
in  the  objects  of  their  affection  ;  they 
conceal,  dissimulate,  and  justify  their 
vices  and  deformities,  and  frequently 
end  with  mistaking  them  for  perfec- 
tions. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  proofs  of  the 
existence  of  a  sovereign  intelligence, 
drawn  from  the  order,  from  the  beauty, 
from  the  harmony  of  the  universe,  are 
quite  ideal,  and  have  no  reality  but  for 
those  who  are  organized  and  modified  in 
a  certain  mode,  or  whose  cheerful  ima- 
gination is  constructed  to  give  birth  to 
agreeable  chimeras  which  they  embel- 
lish according  to  their  fancy.  These 
illusions,  however,  must  be  frequently 
dissipated  even  in  themselves  whenev- 
er their  machine  becomes  deranged  ; 
the  spectacle  of  nature,  Avhich,  under 
certain  circumstances,  has  appeared  to 
them  so  delightful  and  so  seducing, 
must  then  give  place  to  disorder  and 
confusion.  A  man  of  a  melancholy 
temperament,  soured  by  misfortunes  or 
infirmities,  cannot  view  nature  and  its 
author  under  the  same  perspective  as 
the  healthy  man  of  a  sprightly  humour, 


Is  there  any  thing  more  inconclusive  than 
the  ideas  of  some  Theists  who  deny  the  lib- 
erty of  man,  and  who,  notwithstanding,  ob- 
stinately persist  in  speaking  of  an  avenging 
and  lemunerating  God  1  How  can  a  just  Goa 
xmish  necessary  actions  ? 


256 


OF  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


and  contented  with  every  thing.  De- 
prived of  happiness,  the  peevish  man 
can  only  find  disorder,  deformity,  and 
subjects  to  afflict  himself  with  ;  he  on- 
ly contemplates  the  universe  as  the  the- 
atre of  the  malice  or  the  vengeance  of 
an  angry  tyrant ;  he  cannot  sincerely 
love  this  malicious  being,  he  hates 
him  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  even 
when  rendering  him  the  most  servile 
homage:  trembling,  he  adores  a  hate- 
ful monarch,  of  whom  the  idea  produ- 
ces only  sentiments  of  mistrust,  of  fear, 
of  pusillanimity  ;  in  short,  he  becomes 
superstitious,  credulous,  and  very  often 
cruel  after  the  example  of  the  master 
whom  he  believes  himself  obliged  to 
serve  and  to  imitate. 

In  consequence  of  these  ideas,  which 
have  their  birth  in  an  unhappy  temper- 
ament and  a  peevish  humour,  the  su- 
perstitious are  continually  infected 
Avith  terrours,  with  mistrusts,  with 
alarms.  Nature  cannot  have  charms 
for  them ;  they  do  not  participate  in  her 
cheerful  scenes,  they  only  look  upon 
this  world,  so  marvellous  and  so  good 
to  the  contented  enthusiast,  as  a  valley 
of  tears,  in  which  a  vindictive  and 
jealous  God  has  placed  them  only  to 
expiate  crimes  committed  cither  by 
themselves  or  their  fathers  ;  they  con- 
sider themselves  to  be  here  the  victims 
and  the  sport  of  his  despotism,  to  un- 
dergo continual  trials,  to  the  end  that 
they  may  arrive  for  ever  at  a  new  ex- 
istence, in  which  they  shall  be  happy 
or  miserable,  according  to  the  conduct 
which  they  shall  have  held  towards 
the  fantastical  God  who  holds  their  des- 
tiny in  his  hands. 

These  are  the  dismal  ideas  which 
have  given  birth  to  all  the  worships,  to 
all  the  most  foolish  and  the  most  cruel 
superstitions,  to  all  the  irrational  prac- 
tices, all  the  absurd  systems,  all  the  ex- 
travagant notions  and  opinions,  all  the 
doctrines,  the  ceremonies,  the  rites,  in 
short,  to  all  the  religions  on  the  earth  ;* 

*  History  abounds  with  details  of  the  most 
atrocious  cruelties  under  the  imposing  name 
of"  God  swill"  "  God's  judgments:"  nothing 
has  been  considered  either  too  fantastical  or 
too  flagitious  by  the  votaries  of  superstition. 
Parents  have  immolated  their  children  ;  lovers 
have  sacrificed  the  objects  of  their  affection ; 
friends  have  destroyed  each  other ;  the  most 
bloody  disputes  have  been  fomented ;  the 
most  interminable  animosities  have  been  en- 
gendered, to  gratify  the  whim  of  implacable 


they  have  been,  and  always  will  be,  an 
eternal  source  of  alarm,  of  discord,  and 
of  delirium,  for  those  dreamers  who 
are  nourished  with  bile,  or  intoxicated 
with  divine  fury,  whose  atrabilious  hu- 
mour disposes  to  wickedness,  whose 
wandering  imagination  disposes  to  fa- 
naticism, whose  ignorance  prepares 
them  for  credulity,  and  who  blindly 
submit  to  their  priests  :  these,  for  their 
own  interests,  avail  themselves  fre- 
quently of  their  fierce  and  austere  God 
to  excite  them  to  crimes,  and  to  induce 
them  to  ravish  from  others  that  repose 
of  which  they  are  themselves  deprived. 

It  is,  then,  in  the  diversity  of  tem- 
peraments and  passions  that  we  must 
seek  the  difference  we  find  between 
the  God  of  the  theist,  the  optimist,  the 
happy  enthusiast,  and  that  of  the  devo- 
tee, the  superstitious,  the  zealot,  whose 
intoxication  so  frequently  renders  him 
unsociable  and  cruel.  They  are  all 
equally  irrational;  they  are  the  dupes 
of  their  imagination  ;  the  one,  in  the 
transport  of  their  love,  see  God  only  on 
the  favourable  side;  the  others  never 
see  him  but  on  the  unfavourable*  side. 
Every  time  we  set  forth  a  false  suppo- 
sition, all  the  reasonings  we  make  on 
it  are  only  a  long  series  of  errours ;  ev- 
ery time  we  renounce  the  evidence  of 
our  senses,  of  experience,  of  nature, 
and  of  reason,  it  is  impossible  to  calcu- 
late the  bounds  at  which  the  imagina- 
tion will  stop.  It  is  true  the  ideas  of 
the  happy  enthusiast  will  be  less  dan- 
gerous to  himself  and  to  others,  than 
those  of  the  superstitious  atrabilious 
man,  whose  temperament  shall  render 
him  both  cowardly  and  cruel;  never- 
theless the  Gods  of  the  one  and  the 
other  are  not  the  less  chimerical ;  that 
of  the  first  is  the  produce  of  agreeable 
dreams,  that  of  the  second  is  the  fruit 
of  a  peevish  transport  of  the  brain. 

There  will  never  be  more  than  a 
step  between  theism  and  superstition. 
The  smallest  revolution  in  the  machine, 
a  slight  infirmity,  an  unforseen  afflic- 
tion, suffices  to  change  the  course  of 
the  humours,  to  vitiate  the  tempera- 
ment, to  overturn  the  system  of  opin- 
ions of  the  theist,  or  of  the  happy  devo- 
tee ;  as  soon  as  the  portrait  of  his  God  is 
found  disfigured,  the  beautiful  order 

priests,  who,  by  crafty  inventions,  have  ob- 
tained an  influence  over  the  people. 


OP  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,  AND   FINAL   CAUSES. 


257 


of  nature  will  be  overthrown  relative- 
ly to  him,  and  melancholy  will,  by 
degrees,  plunge  him  into  superstition, 
into  pusillanimity,  and  into  all  those  ir- 
regularities which  produce  fanaticism 
and  credulity. 

The  Divinity,  existing  but  in  the  im- 
agination of  men,  must  necessarily  take 
its  complexion  from  their  character,  he 
will  have  their  passions ;  he  will  con- 
stantly follow  the  revolutions  of  their 
machine,  he  will  be  lively  or  sad, 
favourable  or  prejudicial,  friendly  or 
inimical,  sociable  or  fierce,  humane  or 
cruel,  according  as  he  who  carries  him 
in  his  brain  shall  be  himself  disposed. 
A  mortal,  plunged  from  a  state  of  hap- 
piness into  misery,  from  health  into 
sickness,  from  joy  into  affliction,  can- 
not, in  these  vicissitudes,  preserve  the 
same  God.  What  is  this  but  a  God 
who  depends  at  each  instant  upon  the 
variations  which  natural  causes  make 
the  organs  of  man  undergo  ?  A  strange 
God,  indeed  !  of  whom  the  floating 
idea  depends  on  the  greater  or  less  por- 
tion of  heat  and  fluidity  of  our  blood  ! 

No  doubt  that  a  God  constantly 
good,  filled  with  wisdom,  embellished 
with  qualities  amiable  and  favourable 
to  man,  would  be  a  more  seductive  chi- 
mera than  the  God  of  the  fanatic  and 
of  the  superstitious  ;  but  he  is  not  less 
for  that  reason  a  chimera,  that  will  be- 
come dangerous  when  the  speculators, 
who  shall  be  occupied  with  it,  shall 
change  their  circumstances  or  their 
temperament ;  these,  looking  upon  him 
as  the  author  of  all  things,  will  see 
their  God  change,  or  will  at  least  be 
obliged  to  consider  him  as  a  being  full 
of  contradictions,  upon  which  there  is 
no  depending  with  certainty ;  from 
thence  incertitude  and  fear  will  possess 
their  mind ;  and  this  God,  whom  at 
first  they  fancied  so  charming,  will  be- 
come a  subject  of  terrour  to  them,  likely 
to  plunge  them  in  the  most  gloomy 
superstition,  from  which,  at  first  sight, 
they  appeared  to  be  at  an  infinite  dis- 
tance. 

Thus  theism,  or  the  pretended  natu- 
ral religion,  cannot  have  certain  prin- 
ciples, and  those  who  profess  it  are  ne- 
cessarily subject  to  vary  in  their  opin- 
ions of  the  Divinity,  and  in  their  con- 
duct which  flows  from  them.  Their 
system,  originally  founded  upon  a  wise 
and  intelligent  God,  whose  goodness 

No.  IX.— 33 


can  never  contradict  itself,  as  soon  as 
circumstances  change,  must  presently 
be  converted  into  fanaticism,  and  into 
superstition.  This  system,  succes- 
sively meditated  by  enthusiasts  of  dif- 
ferent characters,  must  experience  con- 
tinual variations,  and  very  quickly  de- 
part from  its  pretended  primitive  sim- 
plicity. The  greater  part  of  those  phi- 
losophers have  been  disposed  to  substi- 
tute theism  to  superstition,  but  they 
have  not  felt  that  theism  was  formed 
to  corrupt  itself  and  to  degenerate.  In- 
deed, striking  examples  prove  this  fatal 
truth  ;  theism  is  every  where  corrupt- 
ed ;  it  has  by  degrees  formed  those  su- 
perstitions, those  extravagant  and  pre- 
judicial sects,  with  which  the  human 
species  is  infected.  As  soon  as  man 
consents  to  acknowledge  invisible  pow- 
ers out  of  nature,  upon  which  his  restless 
mind  will  never  be  able  invariably  to 
fix  its  ideas,  and  which  his  imagina- 
tion alone  will  be  capable  of  painting 
to  him ;  whenever  he  shall  not  dare  to 
consult  his  reason  relatively  to  these 
imaginary  powers,  it  must  necessarily 
be,  that  this  first  false  step  leads  him 
astray,  and  that  his  conduct,  as  well  as 
his  opinions,  becomes,  in  the  long  run, 
perfectly  absurd.* 

We  call   theists  or  deists,   among 


*  The  religion  of  Abraham  appears  to  have 
originally  been  a  theism  imagined  to  reform 
the  superstition  of  the  Chaldeans ;  the  the- 
ism of  Abraham  was  corrupted  by  Moses, 
who  availed  himself  of  it  to  form  the  Judaical 
superstition.  Socrates  was  a  theist,  who, 
like  Abraham,  believed  in  divine  inspirations; 
his  disciple,  Plato,  embellished  the  theism  of 
his  master  with  the  mystical  colours  which 
he  borrowed  from  the  Egyptian  and  Chaldean 
priests,  and  which  he  modified  himself  in  his 
poetical  brain.  The  disciples  of  Plato  such  as 
Proclus,  Jamblichus,  Plolmus,  Porphyrus,  &c. 
were  true  fanatics,  plunged  in  the  grossest  su- 
perstition. In  short,  the  first  doctors  of 
Christianity  were  Platonists,  who  combined 
the  Judaical  superstition,  reformed  by  the 
Apostles  or  by  Jesus,  with  Platonism.  Many 
people  have  looked  upon  Jesus  as  a  true  the- 
ist,  whose  religion  has  been  by  degrees  cor- 
rupted. Indeed,  in  the  books  which  contain 
the  law  which  is  attributed  to  him,  there  is  no 
mention  either  of  worship,  or  of  priests,  or  of 
sacrifices,  or  of  offerings,  or  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  doctrines  of  actual  Christianity, 
which  has  become  the  most  prejudicial  of  all 
the  superstitions  of  the  earth.  Mahomet,  in 
combating  the  polytheism  of  his  country,  was 
only  desirous  of  bringing  back  the  Arabs  to 
the  primitive  theism  of  Abraham  and  of  his 
son  Ishmael,  and  yet  Mahometism  is  divided 


OF  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,   AND   FINAL  CAUSES. 


ourselves,  those  who,  undeceived  in  a 
great  number  of  grosser  errours  with 
which  the  uninformed  and  supersti- 
tious are  successively  filled,  simply 
hold  to  the  vague  notion  of  the  Divini- 
ty which  they  consider  as  an  unknown 
agent,  endued  with  intelligence,  wis- 
dom, power,  and  goodness ;  in  short, 
full  of  infinite  perfections.  According 
to  them,  this  being  is  distinguished 
from  nature  ;  they  found  his  existence 
upon  the  order  and  the  beauty  which 
reigns  in  the  universe.  Prepossessed 
in  favour  of  his  benevolent  providence, 
they  obstinately  persist  in  not  seeing 
the  evils  of  which  this  universal  agent 
must  be  the  reputed  cause  whenever  he 
does  not  avail  himself  of  his  power  to 
prevent  them.  Infatuated  by  these 
ideas,  of  which  we  have  shown  the 
slender  foundation,  it  is  not  surprising 
there  should  be  but  little  harmony  in 
their  systems,  and  in  the  consequences 
which  they  draw  from  them.  Indeed, 
some  suppose,  that  this  imaginary  be- 
ing, retired  into  the  profundity  of  his  es- 
sence, after  having  brought  matter  out 
of  nothing,  abandoned  it  for  ever  to  the 
motion  which  he  had  once  given  to  it. 
They  have  occasion  for  God  only  to 
give  birth  to  nature ;  this  done,  every 
thing  that  takes  place  in  it  is  only  a 
necessary  consequence  of  the  impulse 
which  was  given  to  it  in  the  origin  of 
things ;  he  was  willing  that  the  world 
should  exist ;  but  too  great  to  enter  into 
the  detail  of  its  administration,  he  deli- 
vered all  the  events  to  second  or  natu- 
ral causes ;  he  lives  in  a  state  of  per- 
fect indifference  as  to  his  creatures,  who 
have  no  relation  whatever  with  him, 
and  who  can  in  no  wise  disturb  his 
unalterable  happiness.  From  whence 
we  see  the  least  superstitious  of  the 
deists  make  of  their  God  a  being  use- 
less to  men ;  but  they  have  occasion 
for  a  word  to  designate  the  first  cause 
or  the  unknown  power  to  which,  for 
want  of  being  acquainted  with  the  en- 
ergy of  nature,  they  believe  they  ought 
to  attribute  its  primitive  formation,  or, 
if  they  will,  the  arrangement  of  matter 
which  is  coeternal  with  God. 

Other  theists,  furnished  with  a  more 
lively  imagination,  suppose  more  par- 

intq  seventy-two  sects.  All  this  proves  that 
theism  is  always  more  or  less  mingled  with 
fanaticism,  which"  sooner  or  later  finishes  by 
producing  ravages  and  misery. 


ticular  relations  between  the  universal 
agent  and  the  human  species  ;  each  of 
them,  according  to  the  fecundity  of  his 
genius,  extends  or  diminishes  these 
relations,  supposes  duties  from  man 
towards  his  Creator,  believes  that,  to 
please  him,  he  must  imitate  his  pre- 
tended goodness,  and,  like  him,  do  good 
to  his  creatures.  Some  imagine  to 
themselves  that  this  God,  being  just, 
reserves  rewards  for  those  who  do  good, 
and  chastisements  for  those  who  com- 
mit evil  to  their  fellow-creatures.  From 
whence  we  see  that  these  humanize 
their  Divinity  a  little  more  than  the 
others,  in  making  him  like  unto  a  sove- 
reign, who  punishes  or  recompenses 
his  subjects,  according  to  their  fidelity 
in  fulfilling  their  duties,  and  the  laws 
which  he  imposes  on  them  :  they  can- 
not, like  the  pure  deists,  content  them- 
selves with  an  immoveable  and  indif- 
ferent God ;  they  need  one  who  ap- 
proaches nearer  to  themselves  ;  or  who, 
at  least,  can  serve  them  to  explain  some 
of  those  enigmas  which  this  world  pre- 
sents. As  each  of  these  speculators, 
which  we  denominate  theists  to  distin- 
guish them  from  the  first,  makes  a  sepa- 
rate system  of  religion  for  himself,  they 
are  in  nowise  in  accord  in  their  worship, 
nor  in  their  opinions ;  there  are  found  be- 
tween them  shades  frequently  impercep- 
tible, which,  from  simple  deism,  con- 
ducts some  amonpr  them  to  superstition  • 
in  short,  but  little  in  harmony  with  them- 
selves, theydonot  know  upon  what  to  fix.* 


*  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  the  writings  of 
the  thei-sts  and  of  the  deists  are  commonly  as 
much  filled  with  paralogisms,  or  fallacious 
syllogisms,  and  with  contradictions,  as  those 
of  the  theologians;  their  systems  are  fre- 
quently in  the  last  degree  inconsequent.  One 
says  that  every  thing  is  necessary,  denies  the 
spirituality  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
refusing  to  believe  the  liberty  of  man.  Could- 
we  not  ask  them,  in  this  case,  of  what  service 
can  be  their  God  ?  They  have  occasion  for  a 
word,  which  custom  has  rendered  necessary 
to  them.  There  are  very  few  men  in  the  world 
who  dare  be  consistent :  but  let  us  invite  all 
the  deicolists,  or  supporters  of  the  existence  of 
a  God,  under  whatever  denomination  they 
may  be  designated,  to  inquire  of  themselves, 
if  it  be  possible  for  them  to  attach  any  fixed, 
permanent,  and  invariable  idea,  always  com- 
patible with  the  nature  of  things,  to  the  being 
whom  they  designate  under  the  name  of  God, 
and  they  will  see,  that,  as  soon  as  they  dis- 
tinguish him  from  nature,  they  will  no  longer 
understand  any  thing  about  him.  The  re- 
pugnance which  the  greater  part  of  men  show 


OF  DEISM,   OPTIMISM,  AND   FINAL  CAUSES. 


259 


We  must  not  be  astonished  ;  if  the 
God  of  the  deist  is  useless,  that  of  the 
theist  is  necessarily  full  of  contradic- 
tions :  both  of  them  admit  a  being,  who 
is  nothing  but  a  mere  fiction.  Do  they 
make  him  material?  he  returns  from 
thence  into  nature.  Do  they  make  him 
spiritual  ?  they  have  no  longer  any  real 
ideas  of  him.  Do  they  give  him  moral 
attributes  ?  they  immediately  make  a 
man  of  him,  of  whom  they  only  extend 
the  perfections,  but  of  whom  the  quali- 
ties are  in  contradiction  every  moment, 
as  soon  as  they  suppose  him  the  author 
of  all  things.  Thus,  whenever  one  of 
the  human  species  experiences  mis- 
fortunes, you  will  see  him  deny  provi- 
dence, laugh  at  final  causes,  obliged  to 
acknowledge  either  that  God  is  impo- 
tent, or  that  he  acts  in  a  mode  contra- 
dictory to  his  goodness.  Yet,  those 
who  suppose  a  just  God,  are  they  not 
obliged  to  suppose  duties  and  regula- 
tions, emanating  from  this  being,  whom 
they  cannot  offend  if  they  do  not  know 
his  will?  Thus  the  theist,  one  after 
another,  to  explain  the  conduct  of  his 
God,  finds  himself  in  continual  embar- 
rassment, from  which  he  knows  not  how 
to  withdraw  himself;  but,  in  admitting 
all  the  theological  reveries,  without 
even  excepting  those  absurd  fables 
which  were  imagined  to  render  an  ac- 
count of  the  strange  economy  of  this 
being,  so  good,  so  wise,  so  full  of  equity ; 
it  will  be  necessary,  from  supposition 
to  supposition,  to  recur  to  the  sin  of 
Adam,  or  to  the  fall  of  the  rebel  angels, 
or  to  the  crime  of  Prometheus,  and  the 
box  of  Pandora,  to  find  in  what  man- 
ner evil  has  crept  into  a  world  sub- 
jected to  a  benevolent  intelligence.  It 
will  be  necessary  to  suppose  the  free 
agency  of  man  ;  it  will  be  necessary  to 
acknowledge,  that  the  creature  can  of- 
fend his  God,  provoke  his  anger,  move 
his  passions,  and  calm  them  afterwards 
by  superstitious  ceremonies  and  expia- 
tions. If,  they  suppose  nature  to  be 
subject  to  a  concealed  agent,  endued 
with  occult  qualities,  acting  in  a  mys- 

for  atheism,,  perfectly  resembles  the  horrour 
of  a  vacuum,:  they  nave  occasion  to  believe 
something,  the  mind  cannot  remain  in  sus- 
pense ;  above  all,  when  they  persuade  them- 
selves that  the  thing  interests  them  in  a  very 
lively  manner ;  and  then,  rather  than  believe 
nothing,  they  will  believe  every  thing  that 
shall  be  desired,  and  will  imagine  that  the 
most  certain  mode  is  to  take  a  part. 


terious  manner,  wherefore  should  it  not 
be  supposed  that  ceremonies,  motions 
of  the  body,  words,  rites,  temples,  and 
statues  can  equally  contain  secret  vir- 
tues, suitable  to  reconcile  them  to  the 
mysterious  being  whom  they  adore  1 
Wherefore  should  they  not  give  faith 
to  the  concealed  powers  of  magic,  of 
theurgy,  of  enchantments,  of  charms, 
and  of  talismans  ?  Wherefore  not  be- 
lieve in  inspirations,  in  dreams,  in 
visions,  in  omens,  and  in  soothsayers  ? 
Who  knows  if  the  motive  power  of  the 
universe,  to  manifest  itself  to  men,  has 
not  been  able  to  employ  impenetrable 
ways,  and  has  not  had  recourse  to  me- 
tamorphoses, to  incarnations,  and  to 
tran substantiations  ?  Do  not, all  these 
reveries  flow  from  the  absurd  notions 
which  men  have  formed  to  themselves 
of  the  Divinity  ?  All  these  things,  and 
the  virtues  which  are  attached  to  them, 
are  they  more  incredible  and  less  pos- 
sible than  the  ideas  of  theism,  which 
suppose  that  an  inconceivable,  invisi- 
ble, and  immaterial  God  has  been  able 
to  create  and  can  move  matter  ;  that  a 
God  destitute  of  organs,  can  have  in- 
telligence, think  like  men,  and  have 
moral  qualities  ;  that  a  wise  and  intel- 
ligent God  can  consent  to  disorder ; 
that  an  immutable  and  just  God  can 
permit  that  innocence  should  be  op- 
pressed for  a  time  1  When  a  God  so 
contradictory,  or  so  much  opposed  to 
the  dictates  of  good  sense,  is  admitted, 
there  is  no  longer  any  thing  to  make 
reason  revolt  at.  As  soon  as  they  sup- 
pose such  a  God,  they  can  believe  any 
thing ;  it  is  impossible  to  point  out 
where  they  ought  to  arrest  the  progress 
of  their  imagination.  If  they  presume 
relations  between  man  and  this  incre- 
dible being,  they  must  rear  him  altars, 
make  him  sacrifices,  address  him  with 
continual  prayers,  and  offer  him  pre- 
sents. If  nothing  can  be  conceived  of 
this  being,  is  it  not  the  most  certain 
way  to  refer  to  his  ministers,  who  by 
situation  must  have  meditated  upon 
him,  to  make  him  known  to  others  1 
In  short,  there  is  no  revelation,  no  mys- 
tery, no  practice  that  it  may  not  be 
necessary  to  admit  upon  the  word  of 
the  priests,  who,  in  each  country,  are 
in  the  habit  of  teaching  to  men  that 
which  they  ought  to  think  of  the  Gods, 
and  of  suggesting  to  them  the  means 
of  pleasing  them. 


200 


OF  DEISM,   OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


We  see,  then,  that  the  deists  or 
theists,  have  no  real  ground  to  sepa- 
rate themselves  from  the  superstitious, 
and  that  it  is  impossible  to  fix  the  line 
of  demarcation,  which  separates  them 
from  the  most  credulous  men,  or  from 
those  who  reason  the  least  upon  relir 
gion.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  decide 
with  precision  the  true  dose  of  folly 
which  may  be  permitted  them.  If  the 
deists  refuse  to  follow  the  superstitious 
in  every  step  their  credulity  leads  them, 
they  are  more  inconsistent  than  these 
last,  who,  after  having  admitted  upon 
hearsay,  an  absurd,  contradictory,  and 
fantastical  Divinity,  also  adopt  upon 
report,  the  ridiculous  and  strange  means 
which  are  furnished  them  to  render  him 
favourable  to  them.  The  first  set  forth 
a  false  supposition,  of  which  they  re- 
ject the  necessary  consequences ;  the 
others  admit  both  the  principle  and  the 
conclusion.*  The  God,  who  exists 


*  A  very  profound  philosopher  has  re- 
marked, and  with  reason,  that  deism  must  be 
subject  to  as  many  heresies  and  schisms  as 
religion.  The  deists  have  principles  in  com- 
mon with  the  superstitious,  and  these  have 
frequently  the  advantage  in  their  disputes 
against  mem.  If  there  exists  a  God,  that  is 
to  say,  a  being  of  whom  we  have  no  idea,  and 
who,  nevertheless,  has  relations  with  us, 
wherefore  should  we  not  worship  him  1  But 
what  rule  shall  we  follow  in  the  worship  we 
ought  to  render  him  1  The  most  certain  way 
win  be  to  adopt  the  worstap  of  our  fathers 
and  of  our  priests.  It  will  not  depend  upon 
us  to  seek  another ;  this  worship,  is  it  absurd  ? 
It  will  not  be  permitted  us  to  examine  it. 
Thus,  however  absurd  it  may  prove,  the  most 
certain  way  will  be  to  conform  to  it :  and  we 
may  plead  as  an  excuse,  that  an  unknown 
cause  can  act  in  a  mode  inconceivable  to  us  : 
that  the  views  of  God  are  an  impenetrable 
abyss ;  that  it  is  very  expedient  blindly  to 
leave  them  to  our  guides  :  that  we  shall  act 
wisely  in  looking  upon  them  us  infallible,  &c. 
Whence  we  see  that  a  consequent  theism,  can 
conduct  us,  step  by  step,  to  the  most  abject 
credulity,  to  superstition,  and  even  to  the  most 
dangerous  fanaticism.  Is  fanaticism,  then, 
any  other  thing  than  an  irrational  passion  for  a 
being,  who  has  no  existence  but  in  the  imagi- 
nation? Theism  is,  with  relation  to  super- 
stition, that  which  reform  or  Protestantism 
has  been  to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion. 
The  reformers,  shocked  at  some  absurd  mys- 
teries, have  not  contested  others  which  were 
no  less  revolting.  As  soon  as  the  theological 
God  is  admitted,  there  is  nothing  more  in  re- 
ligion which  may  not  be  adopted.  On  the 
other  hand,  if,  notwithstanding  the  reform, 
the  Protestants  have  frequently  been  intole- 
rant, it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  theists  may  be 
the  same ;  it  ia  difficult  not  to  be  angry  in 


only  in  imagination,  demands  an  ima- 
ginary worship ;  all  theology  is  a  mere 
fiction  ;  there  are  no  degrees  in  false- 
hood, no  more  than  in  truth.  If  God 
exists,  every  thing  which  his  ministers 
say  of  him  must  be  believed ;  all  the 
reveries  of  superstition  have  in  them 
nothing  more  incredible  than  the  in- 
compatible Divinity,  which  serves  for 
their  foundation  ;  these  reveries  them- 
selves, are  only  corollaries  drawn  with 
more  or  less  subtlety,  inductions  which 
enthusiasts  or  dreamers  have  deduced 
from  his  impenetrable  essence,  from 
his  unintelligible  nature,  and  from  his 
contradictory  qualities.  Wherefore, 
then,  stop  on  the  road  ?  Is  there,  in 
any  one  religion  in  the  world,  a  miracle 
more  impossible  to  be  believed  than 
that  of  the  creation,  or  the  eduction 
from  nothing  1  Is  there  a  mystery  more 
difficult  to  be  comprehended  than  a 
God  impossible  to  be  conceived,  and 
whom,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  ad- 
mit ?  •  Is  there  any  thing  more  contra- 
dictory, than  an  intelligent  and  omni- 
potent workman,  who  only  produces  to 
destroy  1  Is  there  any  thing  of  greater 

favour  of  an  object  which  we  believe  of  the 
utmost  importance.  God  is  to  be  feared  only 
because  his  interests  disturb  society.  In  the 
meantime,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  pure 
theism,  or  that  which  is  called  natural  reli- 
gion, is  preferable  to  superstition,  the  same 
as  the  reform  has  banished  many  abuses  from 
those  countries  which  have  embraced  it.  There 
is  nothing  short  of  an  unlimited  and  inviolable 
liberty  of  thought,  that  can  permanently  as- 
sure peace  to  the  mind.  The  opinions  of  men 
are  only  dangerous  when  they  are  restrained, 
or  when  it  is  imagined  necessary  to  make 
others  think  in  the  same  manner  as  we  our- 
selves think.  No  opinions,  not  even  those 
of  superstition,  would  be  dangerous,  if  the 
superstitious  did  not  think  themselves  obliged 
to  persecute  them,  and  had  not  the  power  to 
do  so ;  it  is  this  prejudice,  which,  for  the  ben- 
efit of  mankind,  it  is  essential  to  annihilate, 
and  if  the  thing  be  impossible,  the  object  which 
philosophy  may  reasonably  propose  to  itself, 
will  be  to  make  the  depositaries  of  power  feel 
that  they  never  ought  to  permit  their  subjects 
to  commit  evil  for  their  religious  opinions.  In 
this  case,  wars  would  be  almost  unheard  of 
amongst  men,  and  instead  of  beholding  the 
melancholy  spectacle  of  man  cutting  the 
throat  of  his  fellow  man,  because  he  will  not 
see  his  God  with  his  own  peculiar  eyes,  we 
shall  see  him  labouring  essentially  to  his  own 
happiness,  by  promoting  that  of  his  neigh- 
bour ;  cultivating  the  fields  and  bringing  forth 
the  productions  of  nature,  instead  of  puzzling 
his  brain  with  theological  disputes,  which  can 
never  be  of  the  smallest  advantage  to  any  one 
except  the  priests. 


OF  DEISM,    OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


261 


inutility  than  to  associate  with  nature 
an  agent,  who  cannot  explain  any  one 
of  the  phenomena  of  nature  1 

Let  us  conclude,  then,  that  the  man 
who  is  the  most  credulously  supersti- 
tious, reasons  in  a  manner  more  con- 
clusive, or,  at  least,  more  consistent, 
than  those,  who,  after  having  admitted 
a  God,  of  whom  they  have  no  idea, 
stop  all  at  once,  and  refuse  to  admit 
those  systems  of  conduct  which  are 
the  immediate  and  necessary  result  of 
a  radical  and  primitive  errour.  As 
soon  as  they  subscribe  to  a  principle 
opposed  to  reason,  by  what  right  do 
they  dispute  its  consequences,  however 
absurd  they  may  find  them  ? 

The  human  mind,  we  cannot  too 
often  repeat  for  the  happiness  of  men, 
may  torment  itself  as  much  as  it  will ; 
whenever  it  quits  visible  nature,  it  leads 
itself  astray,  and  is  presently  obliged 
to  return.  If  a  man  mistakes  nature 
and  her  energy,  he  has  occasion  for  a 
God  to  move  her :  he-  will  no  longer 
have  any  ideas  of  her,  and  he  is  in- 
stantly obliged  to  form  a  God,  of  whom 
he  is  himself  the  model ;  he  believes 
he  makes  a  God,  in  giving  him  his 
own  qualities,  which  he  believes  he 
renders  more  worthy  the  sovereign 
of  the  world,  by  exaggerating  them, 
whilst,  by  dint  of  abstractions,  of  ne- 
gations, of  exaggerations,  he  annihi- 
lates them,  or  renders  them  totally  un- 
intelligible. When  he  does  no  longer 
understand  himself,  and  loses  himself 
in  his  own  fictions,  he  imagines  he  has 
made  a  God,  whilst  he  has  only  made 
an  imaginary  being.  A  God  clothed 
with  mortal  qualities  has  always  man 
for  a  model ;  a  God  clothed  with  the 
attributes  of  theology,  has  a  model  no 
where,  and  does  not  exist  relatively  to 
us:  from  the  ridiculous  and  extrava- 
gant combination  of  two  beings  so  di- 
verse, there  can  only  result  a  pure 
chimera,  with  which  our  mind  can 
have  no  relation,  and  with  which  it  is  of 
the  greatest  inutility  to  occupy  our- 
selves. 

Indeed,  what  could  we  expect  from 
a  God  such  as  he  is  supposed  to  be  1 
What  could  we  ask  of  him  1  If  he  is 
spiritual,  how  can  he  move  matter,  and 
arm  it  against  us  1  If  it  be  he  Avho 
establishes  the  laws  of  nature  ;  if  it  be 
he  who  gives  to  beings  their  essence 
and  their  properties;  if  every  thing 


that  takes  place  is  a  proof  and  the  work 
of  his  infinite  providence,  of  his  pro- 
found wisdom,  to  what  end  address 
prayers  to  him  ?  Shall  we  pray  to  him 
to  alter,  in  our  favour,  the  invariable 
course  of  things  ?  Could  he,  even  if 
he  would,  annihilate  his  immutable  de- 
crees, or  retrace  his  steps?  Shall  we 
demand,  that,  to  please  us,  he  shall 
make  the  beings  act  in  a  mode  opposite 
to  the  essence  which  he  has  given 
them  ?  Can  he  prevent  that  a  body, 
hard  by  its  nature,  such  as  a  stone, 
shall  not  wound,  in  falling,  a  brittle 
body,  such  as  the  human  frame,  whose 
essence  is  to  feel?  Thus,  let  us  not 
demand  miracles  of  this  God,  what- 
ever he  may  be  ;  in  despite  of  the  om- 
nipotence which  he  is  supposed  to 
have,  his  immutability  would  oppose 
itself  to  the  exercise  of  his  power ;  his 
goodness  would  oppose  itself  to  the 
exercise  of  his  rigid  justice  ;  his  intel- 
ligence would  oppose  itself  to  those 
changes  that  he  might  be  disposed  to 
make  in  his  plan.  Whence  we  see, 
that  theology  itself,  by  dint  of  discord- 
ant attributes,  makes  of  its  God  an  im- 
moveable  being,  useless  to  man,  to 
whom  miracles  are  totally  impossible. 
We  shall  perhaps  be  told,  that  the 
infinite  science  of  the  Creator  of  all 
things  knows  in  the  beings  which  he 
has  formed  resources  concealed  to  im- 
becile mortals;  and  that  without  chan- 
ging any  thing,  either  in  the  laws  of 
nature  or  in  the  essence  of  things,  he  is 
able  to  produce  effects  which  surpass 
our  feeble  understanding,  without,  how- 
ever, these  effects  being  contrary  to  the 
order  which  he  has  himself  established. 
I  reply,  that  every  thing  which  is  con- 
formable to  the  nature  of  beings,  can 
neither  be  called  supernatural  nor  mi- 
raculous. Many  things  are,  without 
doubt,  above  our  conception,  but  every 
thing  that  takes  place  in  the  world,  is 
natural,  and  can  be  much  more  simply 
attributed  to  nature,  than  to  an  agent 
of  whom  we  have  no  idea.  In  the 
second  place,  that  by  the  word  miracle, 
an  effect  is  meant,  of  which,  for  want 
of  knowing  nature,  she  is  believed  to 
be  incapable.  In  the  third  place,  that 
by  miracle,  the  theologians  of  all 
countries  pretend  to  indicate,  not  an 
extraordinary  operation  of  nature,  but 
an  effect  directly  opposite  to  her  laws 
of  this  nature  ;  to  which,  however,  we 


262 


OP  DEISM,  OPTIMISM,  AND  FINAL  CAUSES. 


are  assured  that  God  has  prescribed 
his  laws.*  On  the  other  hand,  if  God, 
in  those  of  his  works  which  surprise 
us,  or  which  we  do  not  comprehend, 
does  no  more  than  give  play  to  springs 
unknown  to  men,  there  is  nothing  in 
nature  that,  in  this  sense,  may  not  be 
looked  upon  as  a  miracle,  seeing  that 
the  cause  which  makes  a  stone  fall,  is 
as  unknown  to  us,  as  that  which  makes 
our  globe  turn.  In  short,  if  God,  when 
he  performs  a  miracle,  only  avails  him- 
self of  the  knowledge  which  he  has  of 
nature,  to  surprise  us,  he  simply  acts 
like  some  men  more  cunning  than 
others,  or  more  instructed  than  the  un- 
informed, who  astonish  them  with  their 
tricks  and  their  marvellous  secrets,  by 
taking  advantage  of  their  ignorance,  or 
of  their  incapacity.  To  explain  the 
phenomena  of  nature  by  miracles,  is 
to  say,  that  we  are  ignorant  of  the  true 
causes  of  these  phenomena :  to  attrib- 
ute them  to  a  God,  is  to  confess  that 
we  do  not  know  the  resources  of  na- 
ture, and  that  we  need  a  word  to  de- 
signate them  ;  it  is  to  believe  in  magic. 
To  attribute  to  an  intelligent,  immuta- 
ble, provident,  and  wise  being,  those 
miracles  by  which  he  derogates  from 
his  laws,  is  to  annihilate  in  him  these 
qualities.!  An  omnipotent  God  would 

*  A  miracle,  says  BUDD.EUS,  is  an  operation 
by  which  the  laws  of  nature,  upon  which 
depend  the  order  and  the  preservation  of  the 
universe,  are  suspended. — See  Treatise  on 
Atheism,  p.  140. 

t  The  last  refuge  of  the  deist  and  theologian, 
when  driven  off  all  other  ground,  is  the  pos- 
sibility of  every  thing  he  asserts,  couched  in 
the  dogma,  "  that  nothing  is  impossible  with 
God."  They  mark  this  asseveration  with  a 
degree  of  self-complacency,  with  an  air  of 
triumph,  that  would  almost  persuade  one  they 
could  not  be  mistaken ;  most  assuredly  with 
him  who  dips  no  further  than  the  surface, 
they  carry  complete  conviction.  But  if  we 
examine  a  little  the  nature  of  this  proposition, 
we  will  find  that  it  is  untenable.  In  the  first 
place,  the  possibility  of  a  thing,  by  no  means 
proves  its  absolute  existence :  a  thing  may  be 
extremely  possible,  and  yet  not  be.  Secondly, 
if  this  was  once  an  admitted  argument,  there 
would  be,  in  fact,  an  end  of  all  morality.  The 
Bishop  of  Chester,  Dr.  John  Wilkins,  says : 
"  Would  not  such  men  be  generally  accounted 
out  of  their  wits,  who  could  please  themselves 
by  entertaining  actual  hopes  of  any  thing, 
merely  upon  account  of  the  possibility  of  it,  or 
torment  themselves  with  actual  fears  of  all 
such  evils  as  are  possible  1  Is  there  any  thing 
imaginable  more  wild  and  extravagant  than 
this  would  beT'  Thirdly,  the  impossibility 


not  have  occasion  for  miracles  to  go- 
vern the  world,  nor  to  convince  his 
creatures,  whose  minds  and  hearts 
would  be  in  his  own  hands.  All  the 
miracles  announced  by  all  the  religions 
of  the  world,  as  proofs  of  the  interest 
which  the  Most  High  takes  in  them, 
prove  nothing  but  the  inconstancy  of 
this  being,  and  the  impossibility  in 
which  he  finds  himself  to  persuade  men 
of  that  which  he  would  inculcate. 

In  short,  and  as  a  last  resource,  it 
will  be  demanded,  whether  it  would  not 
be  better  to  depend  on  a  good,  wise, 
intelligent  being,  than  on  a  blind  na- 
ture, in  which  we  do  not  find  any  qua- 
lity that  is  consoling  to  us,  or  on  a  fatal 
necessity  always  inexorable  to  our 
cries  ?  I  reply,  first,  that  our  interest 
does  not  decide  the  reality  of  things, 
and  that  if  even  it  should  be  more  ad- 
vantageous to  us  to  have  to  do  with  a 
being  as  favourable  as  God  is  pointed 
out  to  us,  this  would  not  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  this  being.  Secondly,  that 
this  being,  so  good  and  so  wise,  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  represented  to  us  as  an 
irrational  tyrant,  and  that  it  would  be 
more  advantageous  for  man  to  depend 
on  a  blind  nature,  than  on  a  being 
whose  good  qualities  are  contradicted 
every  instant  by  the  same  theology 
which  has  invented  them.  Thirdly, 
that  nature,  duly  studied,  furnishes  us 
with  every  thing  necessary  to  render 
us  as  happy  as  our  essence  admits. 
When,  by  the  assistance  of  experience, 
we  shall  consult  nature,  or  cultivate 
our  reason,  she  will  discover  to  us 
our  duties,  that  is  to  say,  the  indis- 
pensable means  to  which  her  eternal 
and  necessary  laws  have  attached  our 
preservation,  our  own  happiness,  and 
that  of  society.  It  is  in  nature  that 
we  shall  find  wherewith  to  satisfy  our 
physical  wants  ;  it  is  in  nature  we 
shall  find  those  duties  defined,  without 
which  we  cannot  live  happy  in  our 
sphere.  Out  of  nature,  we  only  find 

would  reasonably  appear  to  be  on  the  other 
side ;  so  far  from  nothing  being  impossible, 
every  thing  that  is  erroneous,  would  seem  to 
be  so  ;  for,  if  a  God  existed,  he  could  not  pos- 
sibly either  love  vice,  cherish  crime,  be  pleased 
with  depravity,  or  commit  wrong.  This  de- 
cidedly turns  the  argument  against  them,  and 
leaves  them  no  other  alternative  but  to  retire 
from  behind  the  shield  with  which  they  have 
imagined  they  rendered  themselves  invulner- 
able. 


MEN'S  NOTIONS  ON  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


263 


prejudicial  chimeras  which  render  us 
doubtful  as  to  what  we  owe  to  our- 
selves and  to  the  other  heings  with 
whom  we  are  associated. 

Nature  is  not,  then,  a  stepmother  to 
us ;  we  do  not  depend  upon  an  inexo- 
rable destiny.  Let  us  rely  on  nature 
alone  ;  she  will  procure  us  a  multitude 
of  benefits,  when  we  shall  pay  her  the 
attention  she  deserves:  she  will  furnish 
us  wherewithal  to  alleviate  our  phys- 
ical and  moral  evils,  when  we  shall  be 
disposed  to  consult  her:  she  does  not 
punish  us  or  show  us  rigour,  except 
when  we  despise  her  to  prostitute  our 
incense  to  the  idols  which  our  imagin- 
ation has  elevated  to  the  throne  that 
belongs  to  her.  It  is  by  incertitude, 
discord,  blindness,  and  delirium,  that 
she  visibly  chastises  all  those  who  put 
a  monster-God  in  the  place  which  she 
ought  to  occupy. 

In  supposing,  even  for  an  instant, 
this  nature  to  be  inert,  inanimate,  blind, 
or,  if  they  will,  in  making  chance  the 
God  of  the  universe,  would  it  not  be 
better  to  depend  absolutely  upon  no- 
thing than  upon  a  God  necessary  to  be 
known,  and  of  whom  we  cannot  form 
any  one  idea,  or  if  we  shall  form  one, 
to  whom  we  are  obliged  to  attach  no- 
tions the  most  contradictory,  the  most 
disagreeable,  the  most  revolting,  and 
most  prejudicial  to  the  repose  of  human 
beings  1  Were  it  not  better  to  depend 
on  destiny  or  on  fatality,  than  on  an 
intelligence  so  irrational  as  to  punish 
his  creatures  for  the  little  intelligence 
and  understanding  which  he  has  been 
pleased  to  give  them  ?  Were  it  not 
better  to  throw  ourselves  into  the  arms 
of  a  blind  nature,  destitute  of  wisdom 
and  of  views,  than  to  tremble  all  our 
life  under  the  scourge  of  an  omnipo- 
tent intelligence,  who  has  combined 
his  sublime  plans  in  such  a  manner  that 
feeble  mortals  should  have  the  liberty 
of  counteracting  and  destroying  them, 
and  thus  becoming  the  constant  vic- 
tims of  his  implacable  wrath.* 


*  Lord  Shaftesbury,  although  a  very  zeal- 
ous theist,  says,  with  reason,  that  "many 
honest  people  would  have  a  more  tranquil 
mind  if  they  were  assured  that  they  had  only 
a  blind  destiny  for  their  guide  :  they  tremble 
more  in  thinking  that  there  is  a  God,  than  if 
they  believed  that  he  did  not  exist."  See  his 
Letter  on  Enthusiasm;  see  also  Chapter 

XIII. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Examination  of  the  Advantages  which  result 
to  men  from  their  Notions  on  the  Divinity, 
or  of  their  Influence  upon  Morals,  upon  Pol- 
itics, upon  the  Sciences,  upon  the  Happiness 
of  Nations  and  Individuals. 

WE  have  hitherto  seen  the  slender 
foundation  of  those  ideas  which  men 
form  to  themselves  of  the  Divinity ; 
the  little  solidity  there  is  in  the  proofs 
by  which  they  suppose  his  existence : 
the  want  of  harmony  in  the  opinions 
they  have  formed  of  this  being,  equally 
impossible  to  be  known  to  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  earth :  we  have  shown 
the  incompatibility  of  those  attributes 
which  theology  assigns  to  him:  we 
have  proved  that  this  being,  whose 
name  alone  has  the  power  of  inspiring 
fear,  is  nothing  but  the  shapeless  fruit 
of  ignorance,  of  an  alarmed  imagina- 
tion, of  enthusiasm,  of  melancholy :  we 
have  shown  that  the  notions  which 
men  have  formed  of  him.  only  date  their 
origin  from  the  prejudices  of  their  infan  \ 
cy,  transmitted  by  education,  strength- 
ened by  habit,  nourished  by  fear,  main- 
tained and  perpetuated  by  authority. 
In  short,  every  thing  must  have  con- 
vinced us,  that  the  idea  of  God,  so  gen- 
erally diffused  over  the  earth,  is  no 
more  than  a  universal  errour  of  the 
human  species.  It  remains  now  to  ex- 
amine if  this  errour  be  useful. 

No  errour  can  be  advantageous  to  the 
human  species  ;  it  is  ever  founded  up- 
on his  ignorance,  or  the  blindness  of 
his  mind.  The  more  importance  men 
shall  attach  to  their  prejudices,  the 
more  is  the  fatal  consequences  of  their 
errours.  Thus,  Bacon  had  great  reason 
for  saying  that  the  worst  of  all  things, 
is  deified  errour.  Indeed,  the  incon- 
veniences which  result  from  our  reli- 
gious errours  have  been,  and  always 
will  be,  the  most  terrible  and  the  most 
extensive.  The  more  we  respect  these 
errours,  the  more  play  they  give  to  our 
passions,  the  more  they  disturb  our 
mind,  the  more  irrational  they  render 
us,  the  greater  influence  they  have  on 
the  whole  conduct  of  our  lives.  There 
is  but  little  likelihood  that  he  who  re- 
nounces his  reason  in  the  thing  which 
he  considers  as  the  most  essential  to  his 
happiness,  will  listen  to  it  on  any  oth- 
er occasion. 

If  we  reflect  a  little,  we  shall  find 
the  most  convincing  proof  of  this  sad 


264 


EXAMINATION  OF  ADVANTAGES  RESULTING 


truth ;  we  shall  see  in  those  fatal  no- 
tions which  men  have  cherished  of  the 
Divinity,  the  true  source  of  those  pre- 
judices and  of  those  sorrows  of  every 
kind  to  which  they  are  the  victims. 
Nevertheless,  as  we  have  elsewhere 
said,  utility  ought  to  be  the  only  rule 
and  the  uniform  standard  of  those  judg- 
ments which  are  formed  on  the  opin- 
ions, the  institutions,  the  systems,  and 
the  actions  of  intelligent  beings ;  it  is 
according  to  the  happiness  which  these 
things  procure  for  us,  that  we  ought  to 
attach  to  them  our  esteem ;  whenever 
they  are  useless,  we  ought  to  despise 
them ;  as  soon  as  they  become  perni- 
cious, we  ought  to  reject  them:  and  rea- 
son prescribes  that  we  should  detest 
them  in  proportion  to  the  magnitude  of 
the  evils  they  cause. 

From  these  principles,  founded  on 
our  nature,  and  which  will  appear  in- 
contestable to  every  reasonable  being, 
let  us  coolly  examine  the  effects  Avhich 
the  notions  of  the  Divinity  have  produ- 
ced on  the  earth.  We  have  already 
shown,  in  more  than  one  part  of  this 
work,  that  morals,  which  have  only  for 
object  that  man  should  preserve  him- 
self and  live  in  society,  had  nothing  in 
common  with  those  imaginary  systems 
which  he  can  form  to  himself  upon  a 
power  distinguished  from  nature ;  we 
have  proved,  that  it  sufficed  to  meditate 
on  the  essence  of  a  sensible,  intelligent, 
and  rational  being,  to  find  motives  to 
moderate  his  passions,  to  resist  his  vi- 
cious propensities,  to  make  him  fly 
criminal  habits,  to  render  himself  use- 
ful and  dear  to  those  beings  for  whom 
he  has  a  continual  occasion.  These 
motives  are,  without  doubt,  more  true, 
more  real,  more  powerful,  than  those 
which  it  is  believed  ought  to  be  bor- 
rowed from  an  imaginary  being,  calcu- 
lated to  be  seen  diversely  by  all  those 
who  shall  meditate  upon  him.  We 
have  demonstrated,  that  education,  in 
making  us,  at  an  early  period,  contract 
good  habits,  favourable  dispositions, 
strengthened  by  the  laws,  by  a  respect 
for  public  opinion,  by  ideas  of  decency, 
by  the  desire  of  meriting  the  esteem  of 
others,  by  the  fear  of  losing  our  own 
esteem,  would  be  sufficient  to  accustom 
us  to  a  laudable  conduct,  and  to  divert 
us  even  from  those  secret  crimes  for 
which  we  are  obliged  to  punish  our- 
selves by  fear,  shame,  and  remorse. 


Experience  proves  that  the  success  of 
a  first  secret  crime  disposes  us  to  com- 
mit a  second,  and  this  a  third ;  that  the 
first  action  is  the  commencement  of  a 
habit ;  that  there  is  much  less  distance 
from  the  first  crime  to  the  hundredth, 
than  from  innocence  to  criminality  ; 
that  a  man  who  permits  himself  to  com- 
mit a  series  of  bad  actions,  in  the  as- 
surance of  impunity,  deceives  himself, 
seeing  that  he  is  always  obliged  to  pun- 
ish himself,  and  that,  moreover,  he  can- 
not know  where  he  shall  stop.  We 
have  shown,  that  those  punishments 
which,  for  its  own  preservation,  socie- 
ty has  the  right  to  inflict  on  all  those 
who  disturb  it,  are,  for  those  men  who 
are  insensible  to  the  charms  of  virtue, 
or  the  advantages  which  result  from 
the  practice  of  it,  more  real,  more  effi- 
cacious, and  more  immediate  obstacles, 
than  the  pretended  wrath  or  the  distant 
punishments  of  an  invisible  power,  of 
whom  the  idea  is  effaced  every  time 
that  impunity  in  this  world  is  believed 
to  be  certain.  In  short,  it  is  easy  to 
feel  that  politics,  founded  upon  the  na- 
ture of  man  and  of  society,  armed  with 
equitable  laws,  vigilant  with  regard  to 
the  morals  of  men,  faithful  in  reward- 
ing virtue  and  punishing  crime,  would 
be  more  suitable  to  render  morality  re- 
spectable and  sacred  than  the  chimeri- 
cal authority  of  that  God  who  is  ador- 
ed by  all  the  world,  and  who  never  re- 
strains any  but  those  who  are  already 
sufficiently  restrained  by  a  moderate 
temperament,  and  by  virtuous  princi- 
ples. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  proved 
that  nothing  was  more  absurd  and  more 
dangerous  than  attributing  human  qual- 
ities to  the  Divinity,  which,  in  fact,  are 
found  in  continual  contradiction  with 
themselves;  a  goodness,  a  wisdom, 
and  an  equity,  which  we  see  every  in- 
stant counterbalanced  or  denied  by 
wickedness,  by  confusion,  by  an  un- 
just despotism,  which  all  the  theologi- 
ans of  the  world  have  at  all  times  at- 
tributed to  this  same  Divinity.  It  is 
then  very  easy  to  conclude  from  it  that 
God,  who  is  shown  to  us  under  such 
different  aspects,  cannot  be  the  model 
of  man's  conduct,  and  that  his  moral 
character  cannot  serve  for  an  example 
to  beings  living  together  in  society, 
who  are  only  reputed  virtuous  when 
their  conduct  does  not  deviate  from 


PROM  MEN'S  NOTIONS  ON  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


265 


that  benevolence  and  justice  which 
they  owe  to  their  fellow-creatures. 
A  God  superiour  to  every  thing,  who 
owes  nothing  to  his  subjects,  who 
has  occasion  for  no  one,  cannot  be  the 
model  of  creatures  who  are  full  of 
wants,  and  consequently  must  have 
duties. 

Plato  has  said,  that  virtue  consisted 
in  resembling  God.  But  where  shall 
we  find  this  God  whom  man  ought  to 
resemble  1  Is  it  in  nature '?  Alas !  he 
who  is  supposed  to  be  the  mover  of  it, 
diffuses  indifferently  over  the  human 
race  great  evils  and  great  benefits  ;  he 
is  frequently  unjust  to  the  purest  souls ; 
he  accords  the  greatest  favours  to  the 
most  perverse  mortals ;  and  if,  as  we 
are  assured,  he  must  show  himself  one 
day  more  equitable,  we  shall  be  obliged 
to  wait  for  that  time  to  regulate  our 
conduct  upon  his  own. 

Shall  it  be  in  the  revealed  religions, 
that  we  shall  draw  up  our  ideas  of  vir- 
tue ?  Alas !  do  they  not  all  appear  to 
be  in  accord  in  announcing  a  despotic, 
jealous,  vindictive,  and  selfish  God, 
who  knows  no  law,  who  follows  his 
caprice  in  every  thing,  who  loves  or 
who  hates,  who  chooses  or  reproves, 
according  to  his  whim  ;  who  acts  irra- 
tionally, who  delights  in  carnage,  ra- 
pine, and  crime ;  who  plays  with  his 
feeble  subjects,  who  overloads  them 
with  puerile  laws,  who  lays  continual 
snares  for  them,  who  rigorously  pro- 
hibits them  from  consulting  their  rea- 
son? What  would  become  of  morality, 
if  men  proposed  to  themselves  such 
Gods  for  models. 

It  is,  however,  some  Divinity  of  this 
temper  which  all  nations  adore.  Thus, 
we  see  it  is  in  consequence  of  these 
principles,  that  religion,  in  all  coun- 
tries, far  from  being  favourable  to  mo- 
rality, shakes  it  and  annihilates  it.  It 
divides  men  in  the  room  of  uniting 
them  ;  in  the  place  of  loving  each  oth- 
er, and  lending  mutual  succours  one  to 
the  other,  they  dispute  with  each  other, 
they  despise  each  other,  they  hate  each 
other,  they  persecute  each  other,  and 
they  frequently  cut  each  others'  throats 
for  opinions  equally  irrational:  the 
slightest  difference  in  their  religious 
notions,  renders  them  from  that  mo-  ] 
ment  enemies,  separates  their  interests, ! 
and  sets  them  into  continual  quarrels. , 
For  theological  conjectures,  nations  be- ] 

No.  IX.— 34. 


come  opposed  to  other  nations ;  the 
sovereign  arms  himself  against  his  sub- 
jects ;  citizens  wage  war  against  their 
fellow-citizens ;  fathers  detest  their 
children,  these  plunge  the  sword  into 
the  bosom  of  their  parents ;  husbands 
and  wives  are  disunited ;  relations  for- 
get each  other ;  all  the  social  bonds  are 
broken  ;  society  rends  itself  in  pieces 
by  its  own  hands,  whilst,  in  the  midst 
of  this'horrid  confusion,  each  pretends 
that  he  conforms  to  the  views  of  the 
God  whom  he  serves,  and  does  not  re- 
proach himself  with  any  one  of  those 
crimes  which  he  commits  in  the  sup- 
port of  his  cause. 

We  again  find  the  same  spirit  of 
whim  and  madness  in  the  rites,  the 
ceremonies,  and  the  practices,  which 
all  the  worships  in  the  world  appear  to 
have  placed  so  much  above  the  social 
or  natural  virtues.  Here  mothers  de- 
liver up  their  children  to  feed  their  God ; 
there  subjects  assemble  themselves  in 
the  ceremony  of  consoling  their  God 
for  those  pretended  outrages  which 
they  have  committed  against  him,  by 
immolating  to  him  human  victims.  In 
another  cquntry,  to  appease  the  wrath 
of  his  God,  a  frantic  madman  tears 
himself  and  condemns  himself  for  life 
to  rigorous  tortures.  The  Jehovah  of 
the  Jews  is  a  suspicious  tyrant,  who 
breathes  nothing  but  blood,  murder, 
and  carnage,  and  who  demands  that 
they  should  nourish  him  with  the  va- 
pours of  animals.  The  Jupiter  of  the 
Pagans  is  a  lascivious  monster.  The 
Moloch  of  the  Phoenicians  is  a  canni- 
bal ;  the  pure  mind  of  the  Christians 
resolved,  in  order  to  appease  his  fury, 
to  crucify  his  own  son ;  the  savage 
God  of  the  Mexicans  cannot  be  satisfi- 
ed without  thousands  of  mortals  which 
are  immolated  to  his  sanguinary  appe- 
tite. 

Such  are  the  models  which  the  Di- 
vinity presents  to  men  in  all  the  super- 
stitions of  the  world.  Is  it  then  sur- 
prising that  his  name  has  become  the 
signal  of  terrour,  madness,  cruelty,  and 
inhumanity  for  all  nations,  and  serves 
as  a  continual  pretext  for  the'  most 
shameful  and  impudent  violation  of 
the  duties  of  morality  ?  It  is  the  fright- 
ful character  that  men  every  where 
give  of  their  God,  that  banishes  good- 
ness for  ever  from  their  hearts,  morali- 
ty from  their  conduct,  felicity  and  rea- 


266 


EXAMINATION   OP  ADVANTAGES  RESULTING 


son  from  their  habitations ;  it  is  every 
where  a  God  who  is  disturbed  by  the 
mode  in  which  unhappy  mortals  think, 
that  arms  them  with  poniards  one 
against  the  other,  that  makes  them  sti- 
fle the  cries  of  nature,  that  renders 
them  barbarous  to  themselves  and  atro- 
cious to  their  fellow  creatures ;  in  short, 
they  become  irrational  and  furious  ev- 
ery time  that  they  wish  to  imitate  the 
God  whom  they  adore,  to  merit  his  love, 
and  to  serve  him  with  zeal. 

It  is  not,  then,  in  heaven  that  we 
ought  to  seek  either  for  models  of  vir- 
tue, or  the  rules  of  conduct  necessary 
to  live  in  society.  Man  needs  human 
morality,  founded  upon  his  own  nature, 
upon  invariable  experience,  upon  rea- 
son :  the  morality  of  the  Gods  will  al- 
ways be  prejudicial  to  the  earth ;  cruel 
Gods  cannot  be  well  served  but  by 
subjects  who  resemble  them.  What 
becomes,  then,  of  those  great  advanta- 
ges which  have  been  imagined  resulted 
from  the  notions  which  are  unceasingly 
given  us  of  the  Divinity  1  We  see  that 
all  nations  acknowledge  a  God  who  is 
sovereignly  wicked;  and  to  conform 
themselves  to  his  views,  the.y  trample 
under  feet  the  most  evident  duties  of 
humanity ;  they  appear  to  act  as  if  it 
were  only  by  crimes  and  madness  that 
they  hoped  to  draw  down  upon  them- 
selves the  favours  of  the  sovereign  in- 
telligence, of  whose  goodness  they 
boast  so  much.  As  soon  as  there  is  a 
question  of  religion,  that  is  to  say,  of  a 
chimera,  whose  obscurity  has  made 
them  place  him  above  either  reason  or 
virtue,  men  make  it  a  duty  with  them- 
selves to  give  loose  to  all  their  passions ; 
they  mistake  the  clearest  precepts 
of  morality,  as  soon  as  their  priests 
give  them  to  understand  that  the  Di- 
vinity commands  them  to  commit 
crimes,  or  that  it  is  by  transgressions 
that  they  will  be  able  to  obtain  pardon 
for  their  faults. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  in  those  revered 
men,  diffused  over  the  whole  earth,  to 
announce  to  men  the  oracles  of  Hea- 
ven, that  we  shall  find  real  virtues. 
Those  enlightened  men,  who  call  them- 
selves the  ministers  of  the  Most  High, 
frequently  preach  nothing  but  hatred, 
discord,  and  fur^r,  in  his  name :  the  Di- 
vinity, far  from  having  a  useful  influ- 
ence over  their  own  morals,  commonly 
does  no  more  than  render  them  more 


ambitious,  more  covetous,  more  har- 
dened, more  obstinate,  and  more  proud. 
We  see  them  unceasingly  occupied  in 
giving  birth  to  animosities,  by  their  un- 
intelligible quarrels.  We  see  them 
wrestling  against  the  sovereign  author- 
ity, which  they  pretend  is  subject  to 
their's.  We  see  them  arm  the  chiefs 
of  a  nation  against  their  legitimate  ma- 
gistrates. We  see  them  distribute  to  the 
credulous  people  weapons  to  massacre 
each  other  with  in  those  futile  disputes, 
which  the  sacerdotal  vanity  makes  to 
pass  for  matters  of  importance.  Those 
men,  so  persuaded  of  the  existence  of 
a  God,  and  who  menace  the  people 
with  his  eternal  vengeance,  do  they 
avail  themselves  of  these  marvellous 
notions  to  moderate  their  pride,  their 
cupidity,  their  vindictive  and  turbulent 
humour?  In  those  countries,  where 
their  empire  is  established  in  the  most 
solid  manner,  and  where  they  enjoy 
impunity,  are  they  the  enemies  of  that 
debauchery,  that  intemperance,  and 
those  excesses,  which  a  severe  God  in- 
terdicts to  his  adorers  ?  On  the  contra- 
ry, do  we  not  see  them  from  thence 
emboldened  in  crime,  intrepid  in  ini- 
quity, giving  a  free  scope  to  their  irre- 
gularities, to  their  vengeance,  to  their 
hatred,  and  suspicious  cruelties  ?  In 
short,  it  may  be  advanced  without  fear, 
that  those  who,  in  every  part  of  the 
earth,  announce  a  terrible  God,  and 
make  men  tremble  under  his  yoke  ;  that 
those  men,  who  unceasingly  meditate 
upon  him,  and  who  undertake  to  prove 
his  existence  to  others,  who  decorate 
him  with  pompous  attributes,  who  de- 
clare themselves  his  interpreters,  who 
make  all  the  duties  of  morality  to  de- 
pend upon  him,  are  those  whom  this 
God  contributes  the  least  to  render  vir- 
tuous, humane,  indulgent,  and  sociable. 
In  considering  their  conduct,  we  should 
be  tempted  to  believe  that  they  are 
perfectly  undeceived  with  respect  to 
the  idol  whom  they  serve,  and  that  no 
one  is  less  the  dupe  of  those  menaces 
which  they  pronounce  in  his  name, 
than  themselves.  In  the  hands  of  the 
priests  of  all  countries,  the  Divinity  re- 
sembles the  head  of  Medusa,  which, 
without  injuring  him  who  showed  it, 
petrified  all  the  others.  The  priests 
are  generally  the  most  crafty  of  men, 
the  best  among  them  are  truly  wicked. 
Does  the  idea  of  an  avenging  and 


PROM  MEN'S  NOTIONS  ON  THE   DIVINITY,  &c. 


267 


remunerating  God  impose  more  upon 
those  princes,  on  those  Gods  of  the 
earth,  who  found  their  power  and  the 
titles  of  their  grandeur  upon  the  Di- 
vinity himself;  who  avail  themselves 
of  his  terrific  name  to  intimidate,  and 
make  those  people  hold  them  in  rever- 
ence who  are  so  frequently  rendered 
unhappy  by  their  caprice  ?  Alas  !  the 
theological  and  supernatural  ideas, 
adopted  by  the  pride  of  sovereigns, 
have  done  no  more  than  corrupt  poli- 
tics, and  have  changed  them  into  tyr- 
anny. The  ministers  of  the  Most 
High,  always  tyrants  themselves,  or 
the  cherishers  of  tyrants,  are  they  not 
unceasingly  crying  to  monarchs,  that 
they  are  the  images  of  the  Deity  ?  Do 
they  not  tell  the  credulous  people,  that 
Heaven  wills  that  they  should  groan 
under  the  most  cruel  and  the  most  mul- 
tifarious injustice ;  that  to  suffer  is 
their  inheritance ;  that  their  princes, 
like  the  Supreme  Being,  have  the  indu- 
bitable right  to  dispose  of  the  goods,  the 
persons,  the  liberty,  and  the  lives  of 
their  subjects'?  Do  not  those  chiefs  of 
nations,  thus  poisoned  in  the  name  of 
the  Divinfty,  imagine  that  every  thing 
is  permitted  them  ?  Competitors,  rep- 
resentatives, and  rivals  of  the  celestial 
power,  do  they  not  exercise,  after  his 
example,  the  most  arbitrary  despotism? 
Do  they  not  think,  in  the  intoxication 
into  which  sacerdotal  flattery  has  plun- 
ged them,  that,  like  God,  they  are  not 
accountable  to  men  for  their  actions, 
that  they  owe  nothing  to  the  rest  of 
mortals,  that  they  are  bound  by  no 
bonds  to  their  miserable  subjects  ? 

Then  it  is  evident,  that  it  is  to  theo- 
logical notions,  and  to  the  loose  flat- 
tery of  the  ministers  of  the  Divinity, 
that  are  to  be  ascribed  the  despotism, 
the  tyranny,  the  corruption,  and  the 
licentiousness  of  princes,  and  the  blind- 
ness of  the  people,  to  whom,  in  the 
name  of  Heaven,  they  interdict  the  love 
of  liberty,  to  labour  to  their  own  hap- 

Einess,  to  oppose  themselves  to  vio- 
jnce,  to  exercise  their  natural  rights. 
These  intoxicated  princes,  even  in 
adoring  an  avenging  God,  and  in  obli- 
ging others  to  adore  him,  never  cease 
a  moment  to  outrage  him  by  their  irre- 
gularities and  their  crimes.  Indeed, 
what  morality  is  this,  but  that  of  men 
who  offer  themselves  as  living  images 
and  representatives  of  the  Divinity  ? 


Are  they,  then,  atheists,  those  monarchs 
who,  habitually  unjust,  wrest,  without 
remorse,  the  bread  from  the  hands  of  a 
famished  people,  to  administer  to  the 
luxury  of  their  insatiable  courtiers/and 
the  vile  instruments  of  their  iniquities? 
Are  they  atheists,  those  ambitious  con- 
querors, who,  but  little  contented  with 
oppressing  their  own  subjects,carry  des- 
olation, misfortune,  and  death,  among 
the  subjects  of  others?  What  do  we 
see  in  those  potentates,  who  reign  by 
divine  right  over  nations,  except  am- 
bitious mortals,  whom  nothing  can 
arrest,  with  hearts  perfectly  insensible 
to  the  sorrows  of  the  human  species? 
souls  without  energy,  and  without  vir- 
tue, who  neglect  the  most  evident  du- 
ties, with  which  they  do  not  even  deign 
to  become  acquainted  ?  powerful  men, 
who  insolently  place  themselves  above 
the  rules  of  natural  equity  ?*  knaves 
who  make  sport  of  honesty  ?  In  the 
alliances  which  those  deified  sovereigns 
form  between  themselves,  do  we  tind 
even  the  shadow  of  sincerity?  In  those 
princes,  when  even  they  are  subjected, 
in  the  most  abject  manner,  to  supersti- 
tion, do  we  meet  with  the  smallest  real 
virtue  ?  We  only  see  in  them  robbers, 
too  haughty  to  be  humane,  too  great  to 
be  just,  who  make  for  themselves  alone 
a  code  of  perfidies,  violence,  and  trea- 
son ;  we  only  see  in  them  wicked  be- 
ings, ready  to  overreach,  surprise,  and 
injure  each  other ;  we  only  find  in  them 
furies,  always  at  war,  for  the  most  futile 
interests,  empoverishing  their  people, 
and  wresting  from  each  other  the  bloody 
remnants  of  nations  ;  it  might  be  said, 
that  they  dispute  who  shall  make  the 
greatest  number  of  miserable  beings 


*  The  Emperor  Charles  the  Fifth  used  to 
say,  that,  being  a  warrior,  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  have  either  conscience  or  religion  : 
his  general,  the  Marquis  de  Pescaire,  said,  that 
nothing  teas  more  difficult,  than  to  serve  at 
one  and  the  same  time  the  God  Mars  and 
Jesus  Christ.  Generally  speaking,  nothing 
is  more  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
than  the  profession  of  arms ;  and  yet  the 
Christian  princes  have  most  numerous  armies, 
and  are  perpetually  at  war.  Moreover,  the 
clergy  would  be  extremely  sorry  that  the 
maxims  of  the  evangelists,  or  the  Christian 
meekness  should  be  rigidly  followed,  which 
in  nowise  accords  with  their  interests.  This 
clergy  have  occasion  for  soldiers  to  give  so- 
lidity to  iheir  doctrines  and  their  rights.  This 
proves  to  what  a  degree  religion  is  calculated 
to  impose  on  the  passions  of  men. 


EXAMINATION   OF  ADVANTAGES  RESULTING 


on  the  earth  !  At  length,  Avearied  with 
their  own  fury,  or  forced  by  the  hand 
of  necessity  to  make  peace,  they  attest 
the  most  insidious  treaties  in  the  name 
of  God,  ready  to  violate  their  most 
solemn  oaths,  as  soon  as  the  smallest 
interest  shall  require  it.* 

This  is  the  manner  in  which  the  idea 
of  God  imposes  on  those  who  call  them- 
selves his  images,  who  pretend  they 
have  no  account  to  render  but  to  him 
alone  !  Amongst  these  representatives 
of  the  Divinity,  it  is  with  difficulty  we 
find,  during  thousands  of  years,  one 
who  has  equity,  sensibility,  .or  the  most 
ordinary  talents  and  virtues.  The 
people,  brutalized  by  superstition,  suf- 
fer infants  who  are  made  giddy  \vith 
flattery,  to  govern  them  with  an  iron 
sceptre ;  these  madmen,  transformed 
into  Gods,  are  the  masters  of  the  law ; 
they  decide  for  society,  whose  tongue 
is  tied  ;  they  have  the  power  to  create 
both  the  just  and  the  unjust ;  they 
exempt  themselves  from  those  rules 
which  their  caprice  imposes  on  others ; 
they  neither  know  relations  nor  duties ; 
they  have  never  learned  to  fear,  to 
blush,  or  to  feel  remorse  :  their  licen- 
tiousness has  no  limits,  because  it  is 
assured  of  remaining  unpunished  ;  in 
consequence,  they  disdain  public  opin- 
ion, decency,  and  the  judgments  of 
men  whom  they  are  enabled  to  over- 
whelm by  the  weight  of  their  enormous 
power.  We  see  them  commonly  given 
up  to  vice  and  debauchery,  because  the 
listlessness  and  the  disgust  which  fol- 
low the  surfeit  of  satiated  passions, 
oblige  them  to  recur  to  .strange  plea- 
sures and  costly  follies,  to  awaken  acti- 
vity in  their  benumbed  souls.  In  short, 
accustomed  only  to  fear  God,  they  al- 
ways conduct  themselves  as  if  they 
had  nothing  to  fear. 

History,  in  all  countries,  shows  us 
only  a  multitude  of  vicious  and  mis- 
chievous potentates  ;  nevertheless,  it 
shows  us  but  few  who  have  been  athe- 
ists. The  annals  of  nations,  on  the 
contrary,  offer  to  our  view  a  great  num- 
ber of  superstitious  princes,  who  passed 
their  lives  plunged  in  luxury  and  effem- 
inacy, strangers  to  every  virtue,  uni- 
formly good  to  their  hungry  courtiers, 


Nihil  est  quod  credere  de  se 
Non  possit,  cum  laudatur  del  ccqua  po- 
.— Juvenal  Sat.,  4.  v.  79. 


and  insensible  of  the  sorrows  of  their 
.subjects  ;  governed  by  mistresses  and 
unworthy  favourites  ;  leagued  with 
priests  against  the  public  happiness ; 
in  short,  persecutors,  who,  to  please 
their  God,  or  expiate  their  shameful 
irregularities,  joined  to  all  their  other 
crimes,  that  of  tyrannising  over  the 
thought,  and  of  murdering  citizens  for 
their  opinions.  Superstition  in  princes 
is  allied  with  the  most  horrid  crimes  ; 
almost  all  of  them  have  religion,  very 
few  of  them  have  a  knowledge  of  true 
morality,  or  practise  any  useful  virtue. 
Religious  notions  only  serve  to  render 
them  more  blind  and  more  wicked ; 
they  believe  themselves  assured  of  the 
favour  of  Heaven;  they  think  that  their 
Gods  are  appeased,  if,  for  a  little,  they 
show  themselves  attached  to  futile  cus- 
toms, and  to  the  ridiculous  duties 
which  superstition  imposes  on  them. 
Nero,  the  cruel  Nero,  his  hands  yet 
stained  with  the  blood  of  his  own 
mother,  was  desirous  to  be  initiated  into 
the  mysteries  of  Eleusis.  The  odious 
Constantine  found,  in  the  Christian 
priests,  accomplices  disposed  to  expiate 
his  crimes.  That  infamous  Philip, 
whose  cruel  ambition  caused  him  to 
be  called  the  Demon  of  the  South, 
whilst  he  assassinated  his  wife  and 
his  son,  piously  caused  the  throats  of 
the  Batavians  to  be  cut  for  religious 
opinions.  It  is  thus  that  superstitious 
blindness  persuades  sovereigns  that 
they  can  expiate  crimes  by  crimes  of 
still  greater  magnitude. 

Let  us  conclude,  then,  from  the  con- 
duct of  so  many  princes,  so  very  reli- 
gious, but  so  little  imbued  with  virtue, 
that  the  notions  of  the  Divinity,  far 
from  being  useful  to  them,  only  served 
to  corrupt  them,  and  to  render  them 
more  wicked  than  nature  had  made 
them.  Let  us  conclude,  that  the  idea 
of  an  avenging  God  can  never  impose 
restraint  on  a  deified  tyrant,  sufficiently 
powerful  or  sufficiently  insensible  not 
to  fear  the  reproaches  or  the  hatred  of 
men  ;  sufficiently  hardened  not  to  have 
compassion  for  the  sorrow  of  the  hu- 
man species,  from  whom  they  believe 
themselves  distinguished :  neither  heav- 
en nor  earth  has  any  remedy  for  a 
being  perverted  to  this  degree  ;  there 
is  no  curb  capable  of  restraining  his 
passions  to  which  religion  itself  con- 
tinually gives  loose,  and  whom  it  ren- 


PROM  MEN'S  NOTIONS  ON  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


269 


ders  more  rash  and  inconsiderate. 
Every  time  that  they  flatter  themselves 
with  easily  expiating  their  crimes,  they 
deliver  themselves  up  with  greater  fa- 
cility to  crime.  The  most  dissolute 
men  are  frequently  extremely  attached 
to  religion ;  it  furnishes  them  with 
means  of  compensating  by  forms  that 
of  which  they  are  deficient  in  morals: 
it  is  much  easier  to  believe  or  to  adopt 
doctrines,  and  to  conform  themselves 
to  ceremonies,  than  to  renounce  their 
habits  or  to  resist  their  passions. 

Under  chiefs,  depraved  even  by  re- 
ligion, nations  continued  necessarily 
to  be  corrupted.  The  great  conformed 
themselves  to  the  vices  of  their  mas- 
ters ;  the  example  of  these  distinguished 
men,  whom  the  uninformed  believe  to 
be  happy,  was  followed  by  the  people ; 
courts  became  sinks,  whence  issued 
continually  the  contagion  of  vice.  The 
law,  capricious  and  arbitrary,  alone 
delineated  honesty;  jurisprudence  was 
iniquitous  and  partial ;  justice  had  her 
handage  over  her  eyes  only  to  the  poor ; 
the  true  ideas  of  equity  were  effaced 
from  all  minds  ;  education,  neglected, 
served  only  to  produce  ignorant  and 
irrational  beings  ;  devotees,  always 
ready  to  injure  themselves ;  religion, 
sustained  by  tyranny,  took  place  of 
every  thing ;  it  rendered  those  people 
Wind  and  tractable  whom  the  govern- 
ment proposed  to  despoil.* 

Thus  nations,  destitute  of  a  rational 
administration  of  equitable  laws,  of 
useful  instruction,  of  a  reasonable  edu- 
cation, and  always  continued  by  the 
monarch  and  the  priest  in  ignorance 
and  in  chains,  have  become  religious 
and  corrupted.  The  nature  of  man, 
the  true  interests  of  society,  the  real 
advantage  of  the  sovereign  and  of  the 
people  once  mistaken,  the  morality  of 
nature,  founded  upon  the  essence  of 
man  living  in  society,  was  equally  un- 
known. It  was  forgotten  that  man  has 
wants,  that  society  was  only  formed  to 
facilitate  the  means  of  satisfying  them, 
that  government  ought  to  have  for  ob- 

*  Maehiavelli,  in  Chap.  11-13  of  his  Politi- 
cal Discourses  upon  Titus  Livius,  endeavours 
to  show  the  utility  of  superstition  to  the  Ro- 
man republic ;  but,  unfortunately,  the  ex- 
amples by  which  he  supports  it,  proves,  that 
none  but  the  senate  profited  by  the  blindness 
of  the  people,  and  availed  themselves  of  it  to 
keep  them  under  their  yoke. 


ject  the  happiness  and  maintenance  of 
this  society  ;  that  it  ought,  consequent- 
ly, to  make  use  of  motives  suitable  to 
have  a  favourable  influence  over  sensi- 
ble beings.  It  was  not  seen  that  re- 
compenses and  punishments  form  the 
powerful  springs  of  which  public  au- 
thority could  efficaciously  avail  itself 
to  determine  the  citizens  to  blend  their 
interests,  and  to  labour  to  their  own 
felicity,  by  labouring  to  that  of  the 
body  of  which  they  are  members. 
The  social  virtues  were  unknown ;  the 
love  of  country  became  a  chimera;  men 
associated,  had  only  an  interest  in 
injuring  each  other,  and  had  no  other 
care  than  that  of  meriting  the  favour 
of  the  sovereign,  who  believed  himself 
interested  in  injuring  the  whole. 

This  is  the  mode  in  which  the  hu- 
man heart  has  become  perverted  ;  here 
is  the  true  source  of  moral  evil,  and  of 
that  hereditary,  epidemical,  and  inve- 
terate depravity,  which  we  see  reign 
over  the  whole  earth.  It  is  for  the 
purpose  of  remedying  so  many  evils, 
that  recourse  has  been  had  to  religion, 
which  has  itself  produced  them  ;  it  has 
been  imagined  that  the  menaces  of 
Heaven  would  restrain  those  passions 
which  every  thing  conspired  to  rouse 
in  all  hearts ;  men  foolishly  persuaded 
themselves  that  an  ideal  and  metaphy- 
sical barrier,  that  terrible  fables,  that 
distant  phantoms,  would  suffice  to  re- 
strain their  natural  desires  and  impe- 
tuous propensities ;  they  believed  that 
invisible  powers  would  be  more  effica- 
cious than  all  the  visible  powers,  which 
evidently  invite  mortals  to  commit 
evil.  They  believed  they  had  gained 
every  thing  in  occupying  their  minds 
with  dark  and  gloomy  chimeras,  with 
vague  terrours,  and  with  an  avenging 
Divinity  ;  and  politics  foolishly  per- 
suaded itself  that  it  was  for  its  own 
interests  the  people  should  blindly  sub- 
mit to  the  ministers  of  the  Divinity. 

What  resulted  from  this  ?  Nations 
had  only  a  sacerdotal  and  theological 
morality,  accommodated  to  the  views 
and  to  the  variable  interests  of  priests, 
who  substituted  opinions  and  reveries 
to  truth,  customs  to  virtue,  a  pious 
blindness  to  reason,  fanaticism  to  so- 
ciability. By  a  necessary  consequence 
of  that  confidence  which  the  people 
gave  to  ministers  of  the  Divinity,  two 
distinct  authorities  were  established  in 


270 


EXAMINATION  OP  ADVANTAGES  RESULTING 


each  state,  who  were  continually  at 
variance  and  at  war  Avith  each  other ; 
the  priest  fought  the  sovereign  with  the 
formidable  weapon  of  opinion  ;  it  gen- 
erally proved  sufficiently  powerful  to 
shake  thrones.*  The  sovereign  was 
never  at  rest,  but  when  abjectly  de- 
voted to  his  priests,  and  tractably  re- 
ceived their  lessons,  and  lent  his  as- 
sistance to  their  phrensy.  These 
priests,  always  restless,  ambitious,  and 
intolerant,  excited  the  sovereign  to 
ravage  his  own  states,  they  encouraged 
him  to  tyranny,  they  reconciled  him 
with  Heaven  when  he  feared  to  have 
outraged  it.  Thus,  when  two  rival 
powers  united  themselves,  morality 
gained  nothing  by  the  junction;  the 
people  were  neither  more  happy,  nor 
more  virtuous ;  their  morals,  their  well- 
being,  their  liberty  were  overwhelmed 
by  the  united  forces  of  the  God  of  hea- 
ven, and  the  God  of  the  earth.  Princes, 
always  interested  in  the  maintenance 
of  theological  opinions,  so  flattering  to 
their  vanity,  and  so  favourable  to  their 
usurped  power,  for  the  most  part  made 
a  common  cause  with  their  priests ; 
they  believed  that  that  religious  system 
which  they  themselves  adopted  must 
be  the  most  convenient  and  useful  to 
the  interests  of  their  subjects ;  and, 
consequently,  those  who  refused  to 
adopt  it,  were  treated  by  them  as  ene- 
mies. The  most  religious  sovereign 
became,  either  politically,  or  through 
piety,  the  executioner  of  one  part  of  his 
subjects :  he  believed  it  to  be  a  sacred 
duty  to  tyrannise  over  thought,  to  over- 
whelm and  to  crush  the  enemies  of  his 
priests,  whom  he  always  believed  to 
be  the  enemies  of  his  own  authority. 
In  cutting  their  throats,  he  imagined 
he  did  that  which  at  once  discharged 
his  duty  to  Heaven,  and  what  he  owed 
to  his  own  security.  He  did  not  per- 
ceive, that  by  immolating  victims  to 

*  It  is  well  to  observe,  that  the  priests,  who 
are  perpetually  crying  out  to  the  people  to 
submit  themselves  to  their  sovereigns,  be- 
cause their  authority  is  derived  from  Heaven, 
because  they  are  the  images  of  the  Divinity, 
change  their  language  whenever  the  sovereign 
does  not  blindly  submit  to  them.  The  clergy 
upholds  despotism  only  that  it  may  direct  Tts 
blows  against  its  enemies,  but  it  overthrows 
it  whenever  it  finds  it  contrary  to  its  interests. 
The  ministers  of  the  invisible  powers  only 
preach  up  obedience  to  the  visible  powers 
when  these  are  humbly  devoted  to  them. 


his  priests,  he  strengthened  the  ene- 
mies of  his  power,  the  rivals  of  Ins 
greatness,  the  least  subjected  of  his 
subjects. 

Indeed,  owing  to  the  false  notions 
with  which  the  minds  of  sovereigns 
and  the  superstitious  people  have  been 
so  long  prepossessed,  we  find  that  every 
thing  in  society  concurs  to  gratify  the 
pride,  the  avidity,  and  the  vengeance 
of  the  sacerdotal  order.  Every  where 
we  see  that  the  most  restless,  the  most 
dangerous,  and  the  most  useless  men, 
are  those  who  are  recompensed  the 
most  amply.  We  see  those  who  are 
born  enemies  to  the  sovereign  power, 
honoured  and  cherished  by  it ;  the  most 
rebellious  subjects  looked  upon  as  the 
pillars  of  the  throne,  the  corrupters  of 
youth  rendered  the  exclusive  masters 
of  education ;  the  least  laborious  of  the 
citizens,  richly  paid  for  their  idleness, 
for  their  futile  speculations,  for  their 
fatal  discord,  for  their  inefficacious 
prayers,  for  their  expiations,  so  dan- 
gerous to  morals,  and  so  suitable  to 
encourage  crime. 

For  thousands  of  years,  nations  and 
sovereigns  have  been  emulously  des- 
poiling themselves  to  enrich  the  min- 
isters of  the  Gods,  to  enable  them  to 
wallow  in  abundance,  loading  them 
with  honours,  decorating  them  with 
titles,  privileges,  and  immunities,  thus 
making  them  bad  citizens.  What  fruits 
did  the  people  and  kings  gather  from 
their  imprudent  kindness,  and  from 
their  prodigality?  Have  princes  be- 
come more  powerful ;  have  nations 
become,more  happy,  more  flourishing, 
and  more  rational  ?  No!  without  doubt; 
the  sovereign  lost  the  greater  portion 
of  his  authority ;  he  was  the  slave  of 
his  priests,  or  he  was  obliged  to  be 
continually  wrestling  against  them ; 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  riches  of 
society  Avas  employed  to  support  in 
idleness,  luxury,  and  splendour,  the 
most  useless  and  the  most  dangerous 
of  its  members. 

Did  the  morals  of  the  people  im- 
prove under  these'guides  who  were  so 
liberally  paid?  Alas!  the  superstitious 
never  knew  them  ;  religion  had  taken 
place  of  every  thing  else  in  them ;  its 
ministers,  satisfied  with  maintaining 
the  doctrines  and  the  customs  useful 
to  their  own  interests,  only  invented 
fictitious  crimes,  multiplied  painful  or 


FROM  MEN'S  NOTIONS  ON  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


271 


ridiculous  customs,  to  the  end  that  they 
might  turn  even  the  transgressions  of 
their  slaves  to  their  own  profit.  Every 
Avhere  they  exercised  a  monopoly  of 
expiations  ;  they  made  a  traffic  of  the 
pretended  pardons  from  above,  they 
established  a  book  of  rates  for  crimes ; 
the  most  serious  were  always  those 
which  the  sacerdotal  order  judged  the 
most  injurious  to  his  views.  Impiety, 
heresy,  sacrilege,  blasphemy,  &c., 
vague  words,  and  devoid  of  sense, 
which  have  evidently  no  other  object 
than  chimeras,  interesting  only  the 
priests,  alarmed  their  minds  much  more 
than  real  crimes,  and  truly  interesting 
to  society.  Thus,  the  ideas  of  the 
people  were  totally  overturned ;  ima- 
ginary crimes  frightened  them  much 
more  than  real  crimes.  A  man  whose 
opinions  and  abstract  systems  did  not 
harmonize  with  those  of  the  priests, 
was  much  more  abhorred  than  an  as- 
sassin, than  a  tyrant,  than  an  oppressor, 
than  a  robber,  than  a  seducer,  or  than 
a  corrupter.  The  greatest  of  all  wick- 
edness, was  the  despising  of  that  which 
the  priests  were  desirous  should  be 
looked  upon  as  sacred.*  The  civil 
laws  concurred  also  to  this  confusion 
of  ideas;  they  punished  in  the  most 
atrocious  manner  those  unknown  crimes 
which  the  imagination  had  exaggerated ; 
heretics,  blasphemers,  and  infidels, 
were  burnt ;  no  punishment  was  de- 
creed against  the  corrupters  of  inno- 
cence, adulterers,  knaves,  and  calum- 
niators. 

Under  such  instructors,  what  could 
become  of  youth  ?  It  was  shamefully 
sacrificed  to  superstition.  Man  from 
his  infancy  was  poisoned  by  them  with 
unintelligible  notions  ;  they  fed  him 
with  mysteries  and  fables ;  they  drench- 
ed him  with  a  doctrine  in  which  he 
was  obliged  to  acquiesce,  without  being 
able  to  comprehend  it ;  they  disturbed 
his  mind  with  vain  phantoms ;  they 
cramped  'his  genius  with  sacred  trifles, 
with  puerile  duties,  and  with  mechan- 
ical devotions.f  They  made  him  lose 

*  The  celebrated  Gordon  says,  that  the 
most  abominable  of  heresies  is,  to  believe 
there  is  any  other  God  than  the  clergy. 

t  Superstition  has  fascinated  the  human 
mind  to  such  a  degree,  and  made  such  mere 
machines  of  men,  that  there  are  a  great  many 
countries,  in  which  the  people  do  not  under- 
stand the  language  of  which  they  make  use 
to  speak  to  their  God.  We  see  women  who 


his  most  precious  time  in  customs 
and  ceremonies :  they  filled  his  head 
with  sophisms  and  with  errours  ;  they 
intoxicated  him  with  fanaticism ;  they 
prepossessed  him  for  ever  against  rea- 
son and  truth ;  the  energy  of  his  mind 
was  placed  under  continual  shackles  ; 
he  could  never  soar,  he  could  never 
render  himself  useful  to  his  associates ; 
the  importance  which  they  attached  to 
the  divine  science,  or  rather  the  syste- 
matic ignorance  which  served  for  the 
basis  of  religion,  rendered  it  impossible 
for  the  most  fertile  soil  to  produce  any 
thing  but  thorns. 

Does  a  religious  and  sacerdotal  edu- 
cation form  citizens,  fathers  of  families, 
husbands,  just  masters,  faithful  ser- 
vants, humble  subjects,  pacific  asso- 
ciates ?  No  !  it  either  makes  peevish 
and  morose  devotees,  incommodious  to 
themselves  and  to  others,  or  men  with- 
out principles,  who  quickly  sink  in  ob- 
livion the  terrours  with  which  they 
have  been  imbued,  and  who  never 
knew  the  laws  of  morality.  Religion 
was  placed  above  every  thing ;  the 
fanatic  was  told,  that  it  were  better  to 
obey  God  than  man ;  inconsequence, 
he  believed  that  he  must  revolt  against 
his  prince,  detach  himself  from  his 
wife,  detest  his  child,  estrange  himself 
from  his  friend,  cut  the  throats  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  every  time  that  they 
questioned  the  interests  of  Heaven. 
In  short,  religious  education,  when  it 
had  its  effect,  only  served  to  corrupt 
juvenile  hearts,  to  fascinate  youthful 
minds,  to  degrade  young  minds,  to 
make  man  mistake  that  which  he  owed 
to  himself,  to  society,  and  to  the  beings 
which  surrounded  him. 

What  advantages  might  not  nations 
have  reaped,  if  they  would  have  em- 
ployed, on  useful  objects,  those  riches 
which  ignorance  has  so  shamefully 
lavished  on  the  ministers  of  impos- 
ture !  What  progress  might  not  genius 
have  made,  if  it  had  enjoyed  those  re- 
compenses, granted  during  so  many 
ages,  to  those  who  are  at  all  times  op- 
posed to  its  elevation  !  To  what  a  de- 
have  no  other  occupation  all  their  lives,  than 
singing  Latin,  without  understanding  a  word 
of  the  language.  The  people  who  compre- 
hend no  part  of  their  worship,  assist  at  it  very 
punctually,  under  an  idea  that  it  is  sufficient 
to  show  themselves  to  their  God,  who  takes 
it  kind  of  them  that  they  should  come  and 
weary  themselves  in  his  temples. 


272 


EXAMINATION  OF  ADVANTAGES   RESULTING 


gree  might  not  the  useful  sciences,  the 
arts,  morality,  politics,  and  truth,  have 
been  perfected,  if  they  had  had  the  same 
succours  as  falsehood,  delirium,  enthu- 
siasm, and  inutility  ! 

It  is,  then,  evident,  that  the  theolo- 
gical notions  were  and  will  be  perpetu- 
ally contrary  to  sound  politics  and  to 
sound  morality;  they  change  sove- 
reigns into  mischievous,  restless,  and 
jealous  Divinities ;  they  make  of  sub- 
jects envious  and  wicked  slaves,  who, 
by  the  assistance  of  some  futile  cere- 
monies, or  by  their  exterior  acquies- 
cence to  some  unintelligible  opinions, 
imagine  themselves  amply  compensa- 
ted for  the  evil  which  they  commit 
against  each  other.  Those  who  have 
never  dared  to  examine  into  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God,  who  rewards  and  pun- 
ishes ;  those  who  persuade  themselves 
that  their  duties  are  founded  upon  the 
divine  will ;  those  who  pretend  that  this 
God  desires  that  men  should  live  in 
peace,  cherishing  each  other,  lending 
each  mutual  assistance,  and  abstaining 
from  evil,  and  that  they  should  do  good 
to  each  other,  presently  lost  sight  of 
these  steril  speculations,  as  soon  as 
present  interests,  passions,  habits,  or 
importunate  whimsj  hurry  them  away. 
Where  shall  we  find  the  equity,  the 
union,  the  peace  and  concord,  which 
these  sublime  notions,  supported  by 
superstition  and  divine  authority,  prom- 
ise to  those  societies  under  whose 
eyes  they  are  unceasingly  placing 
them  ?  Under  the  influence  of  corrupt 
courts  and  priests,  who  are  either  im- 
postors or  fanatics,  who  are  never  in 
harmony  with  each  other,  I  only  see  vi- 
cious men,  degraded  by  ignorance,  en- 
slaved by  criminal  habits,  swayed  by 
transient  interests,  or  by  shameful 
pleasures,  who  do  not  even  think  of 
their  God.  In  despite  of  his  theologi- 
cal ideas,  the  courtier  continues  to 
weave  his  dark  plots:  he  labours  to 
gratify  his  ambition,  his  avidity,his  ha- 
tred, his  vengeance,  and  all  those  pas- 
sions inherent  to  the  perversity  of  his 
being :  maugre  that  hell,  of  which  the 
idea  alone  makes  her  tremble,  the  cor- 
rupt woman  persists  in  her  intrigues, 
her  impostures,  and  her  adulteries. 
The  greater  part  of  men,  dissipated, 
dissolute,  and  without  morals,  who  fill 
cities  and  courts,  would  recoil  with 
horrour,  if  the  smallest  doubt  was  ex- 


hibited to  them  of  the  existence  of  that 
God  Avhom  they  outrage.  What  good 
results  from  the  practice  of  this  opinion, 
so  universal  and  so  barren,  which  nev- 
er has  any  other  kind  of  influence  on 
the  conduct,  than  to  serve  as  a  pretext 
to  the  most  dangerous  passions  ?  On 
quitting  that  temple,  in  which  they  have 
been  sacrificing,  delivering  out  the  di- 
vine oracles,  and  terrifying  crime  in 
the  name  of  Heaven,  does  not  the  re- 
ligious despot,  who  would  scruple  to 
omit  the  pretended  duties  which  super- 
stition imposes  on  him,  return  to  his 
vices,  his  injustice,  his  political  crimes, 
his  transgressions  against  society  ? 
Does  not  the  minister  return  to  his  vex- 
ations, the  courtier  to  his  intrigues,  the 
woman  of  gallantry  to  her  prostitution, 
the  publican  to  his  extortions,  the  mer- 
chant to  his  frauds  and  tricks  1 

Will  it  be  pretended  that  those  as- 
sassins, those  robbers,  those  unfortu- 
nates, whom  the  injustice  or  the  negli- 
gence of  government  multiply,  and 
1'rom  whom  laws,  frequently  cruel,  bar- 
barously wrest  their  life ;  will  they  pre- 
tend, I  say,  that  these  malefactors,  who 
every  day  fill  our  gibbets  and  our  scaf- 
folds, are  incredulous  or  atheists  ?  No  I 
unquestionably  these  miserable  beings, 
these  outcasts  of  society,  believe  in 
God;  his  name  has  been  repeated  to 
them  in  their  infancy  ;  they  have  been 
told  of  the  punishments  destined  for 
crimes ;  they  have  been  habituated  in 
early  life  to  tremble  at  his  judgments  ; 
nevertheless  they  have  outraged  socie- 
ty ;  their  passions,  stronger  than  their 
fears,  not  having  been  capable  of  re- 
straint by  the  visible  motives,  have  not 
for  much  stronger  reasons  been  restrain- 
ed by  invisible  motives;  a  concealed 
God,  and  his  distant  punishments,  nev- 
er will  be  able  to  hinder  those  excess- 
es, which  present  and  assured  torments 
are  incapable  of  preventing. 

In  short,  do  we  not,  every  moment, 
see  men  persuaded  that  their  God  views 
them,  hears  them,  encompasses  them, 
and  yet  who  do  not  stop  on  that  account 
when  they  have  the  desire  of  gratifying 
their  passions,  and  of  committing  the 
most  dishonest  actions?  The  same  man 
who  would  fear  the  inspection  of  an- 
other man,  whose  presence  would  pre- 
vent him  from  committing  a  bad  action, 
delivering  himself  up  to  some  scanda- 
lous vice,  permits  himself  to  do  every 


FROM  MEN'S  NOTIONS  ON  THE  DIVINITY. 


m 


thing,  when  he  believes  he  is  seen  only 
by  his  God.  What  purpose,  then,  does 
the  conviction  of  the  existence  of  this 
God,  of  his  omniscience,  of  his  ubi- 
quity or  his  presence  in  all  parts,  an- 
swer, since  it  imposes  much  less  on  the 
conduct  of  man,  than  the  idea  of  being 
seen  by  the  least  of  his  fellow-men  ? 
He,  who  would  not  dare  to  commit  a 
fault,  even  in  the  presence  of  an  infant, 
will  make  no  scruple  of  boldly  commit- 
ting it,  when  he  shall  have  only  his 
God  for  witness.  These  indubitable 
facts  may  serve  for  a  reply  to  those 
who  shall  tell  us,  that  the  fear  of  God 
is  more  suitable  to  restrain  the  ac- 
tions of  men,  than  the  idea  of  having 
nothing  to  fear  from  him.  When  men 
believe  they  have  only  their  God  to 
fear,  they  commonly  stop  at  nothing. 

Those  persons,  who  do  not  suspect 
the  most  trivial  of  religious  notions,  and 
of  their  efficacy,  very  rarely  employ 
them  when  they  are  disposed  to  influ- 
ence the  conduct  of  those  who  are  sub- 
ordinate to  them,  and  to  reconduct 
them  into  the  paths  of  reason.  In  the 
advice  which  a  father  gives  to  his  vi- 
cious or  criminal  son,  he  rather  repre- 
sents to  him  the  present  and  temporal 
inconveniences  to  which  his  conduct 
exposes  him,  than  the  danger  he  en- 
counters in  offending  an  avenging  God : 
he  makes  him  foresee  the  natural  con- 
sequences of  his  irregularities,  his 
health  deranged  by  his  debaucheries, 
the  loss  of  his  reputation,  the  ruin  of 
his  fortune  by  play,  the  punishments 
of  society,  &c.  Thus  the  deicolist  him- 
self, in  the  most  important  occasions  of 
life,  reckons  much  more  upon  the  force 
of  natural  motives,  than  upon  the  su- 
pernatural motives  furnished  by  reli- 
gion: the  same  man  who  vilifies  the 
motives  which  an  atheist  can  have  to 
do  good,  and  abstain  from  evil,  makes 
use  of  them  on  this  occasion,  because 
he  feels  the  full  force  of  them. 

Almost  all  men  believe  in  an  aven- 
ging and  remunerating  God ;  neverthe- 
less, in  all  countries,  we  find  that  the 
number  of  the  wicked  exceed  by  much 
that  of  honest  men.  If  we  trace  the 
true  cause  of  so  general  a  corruption, 
we  shall  find  it  in  the  theological  no- 
tions themselves  and  not  in  those  im- 
aginary sources  which  the  different  re- 
ligions of  the  world  have,  in  vented,  in 

No.  IX.— 35 


order  to  account  for  human  depravity. 
Men  are  corrupt,  because  they  are  al- 
most every  where  badly  governed ;  they 
are  unworthily  governed,  because  reli- 
gion has  deified  the  sovereigns ;  these 
perverted,  and  assured  of  impunity, 
have  necessarily  rendered  their  people 
miserable  and  wicked.  Submitted  to 
irrational  masters,  the  people  have  ne- 
ver been  guided  by  reason.  Blinded 
by  priests,  who  are  impostors,  their 
reason  became  useless ;  tyrants  and 
priests  have  combined  their  efforts  with 
success,  to  prevent  nations  from  becom- 
ing enlightened,  from  seeking  after 
truth,  from  meliorating  their  condition, 
from  rendering  their  morals  more  hon- 
est, and  from  obtaining  liberty. 

It  is  only  by  enlightening  men,  by 
demonstrating  truth  to  them,  that  we 
can  promise  ourselves  to  render  them 
better  and  happier.  It  is  by  making 
known  to  sovereigns  and  to  subjects 
their  true  relations,  and  their  true  in- 
terests, that  politics  will  be  perfected, 
and  that  it  will  be  felt  that  the  art  of 
governing  mortals  is  not  the  art  of 
blinding  them,  of  deceiving  them,  or  of 
tyrannising  over  them.  Let  us,  then, 
consult  reason ;  let  us  call  in  experi- 
ence to  our  aid  ;  let  us  interrogate  na- 
ture, and  we  shall  find  what  is  necessa- 
ry to  be  done  in  order  to  labour  effica- 
ciously to  the  happiness  of  the  human 
species.  We  shall  see  that  errour  is 
the  true  source  of  the  evils  of  our  spe- 
cies ;  that  it  is  in  cheering  our  hearts, 
in  dissipating  those  vain  phantoms,  of 
which  the  idea  makes  us  tremble,  in 
laying  the  axe  to  the  root  of  supersti- 
tion, that  we  can  peaceably  seek  after 
truth,  and  find  in  nature  the  torch  that 
can  guide  us  to  felicity.  Let  us,  then, 
study  nature ;  let  us  observe  its  immu- 
table laws  ;  let  us  search  into  the  es- 
sence of  man;  let  us  cure  him  of  his 
prejudices,  and  by  these  means  we 
shall  conduct  him,  by  an  easy  and  gen- 
tle declivity,  to  virtue,  without  which 
he  will  feel  that  he  cannot  be  perma- 
nently happy  in  the  world  which  he 
inhabits. 

Let  us,  then,  undeceive  mortals  with 
regard  to  those  Gods  who  every  where 
make  nothing  but  unfortunates.  Let 
us  substitute  visible  nature  to  those  un- 
known powers  who  have  in  all  times 
only  been  worshipped  by  trembling 


274 


COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THEOLOGICAL 


slaves,  or  by  delirious  enthusiasts. 
Let  us  tell  them  that,  in  order  to  be  hap- 
py, they  must  cease  Jo  fear. 

The  ideas  of  the  Divinity,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  are  of  such  inutility,  and 
so  contrary  to  sound  morality,  do  not 
procure  more  striking  advantages  to 
individuals  than  to  society.  In, every 
country,  the  Divinity  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  represented  under  the  most  re- 
volting traits,  and  the  superstitious 
man,  when  consistent  in  his  principles, 
was  always  an  unhappy  being;  super- 
stition is  a  domestic  enemy  which  man 
always  carries  within  himself.  Those 
who  shall  seriously  occupy  themselves 
with  this  formidable  phantom,  will  live 
in  continual  agonies  and  inquietude; 
they  will  neglect  those  objects  which 
are  the  most  worthy  of  their  attention 
to  run  after  chimeras ;  they  will  com- 
monly pass  their  melancholy  days  in 
groaning,  in  praying,  in  sacrificing,  and 
in  expiating  the  faults,  real  or  imagina- 
ry, which  they  believe  likely  to  otfend 
their  rigid  God.  Frequently  in  their 
fury,  they  will  torment  themselves,  they 
will  make  a  duty  of  inflicting  upon 
themselves  the  most  barbarous  punish- 
ments to  prevent  the  blows  of  a  God  rea- 
dy to  strike  ;  they  will  arm  themselves 
against  themselves,  in  the  hopes  of  dis- 
arming the  vengeance  and  the  cruelty  of 
an  atrocious  master,  whom  they  think 
they  have  irritated ;  they  will  believe 
they  appease  an  angry  God  in  becoming 
the  executioners  of  themselves,  and  do- 
ing themselves  all  the  harm  their  ima- 
gination shall  be  capable  of  inventing. 
Society  reaps  no  benefit  from  the  mourn- 
ful notions  of  these  pious  irrationals  ; 
their  mind  finds  itself  continually  ab- 
sorbed by  their  sad  reveries,  and  their 
time  is  dissipated  in  irrational  ceremo- 
nies. The  most  religious  men  are  com- 
monly misanthropists,  extremely  use- 
less to  the  world,  and  injurious  to  them- 
selves. If  they  show  energy,  it  is  only 
to  imagine  means  to  afflict  themselves, 
to  put  themselves  to  torture,  to  deprive 
themselves  of  those  objects  which  their 
nature  desires.  We  find,  in  all  the  coun- 
tries of  the  earth,  penitents  intimately 
persuaded  that  by  dint  of  barbarities 
exercised  upon  themselves,  and  lin- 
gering suicide,  they  shall  merit  the  fa- 
vour of  a  ferocious  God,  of  whom,  how- 
ever, they  every  where  publish  the 
goodness.  We  see  madmen  of  this 


species  in  all  parts  of  the  world ;  the 
idea  of  a  terrible  God  has  in  all  times 
and  in  all  places,  given  birth  to  the 
most  cruel  extravagances ! 

If  these  irrational  devotees  only  in- 
jure themselves,  and  deprive  society  of 
that  assistance  which  they  owe  it,  they 
without  doubt,  do  less  harm  than  those 
turbulent  and  zealous  fanatics  Avho, 
filled  with  their  religious  ideas,  believe 
themselves  obliged  to  disturb  the  world, 
and  to  commit  actual  crimes  to  sustain 
the  cause  of  their  celestial  phantom.  It 
very  frequently  happens,  that  in  outra- 
ging morality,  the  fanatic  supposes  he 
renders  himself  agreeable  to  his  God. 
He  makes  perfection  consist  either  in 
tormenting  himself,  or  breaking,  in  fa- 
vour of  his  fantastical  notions,  the  most 
sacred  ties  which  nature  has  made  for 
mortals. 

Let  us,  then,  acknowledge,  that  the 
ideas  of  the  Divinity  are  not  more  suit- 
able to  procure  the  Avell-being,  the  con- 
tent, and  peace  of  individuals  than  of 
the  society  of  which  they  are  members. 
If  some  peaceable,  honest,  inconclu- 
sive enthusiasts  find  consolation  and 
comfort  in  their  religious  ideas,  there 
are  millions  who,  more  conclusive  to 
their  principles,  are  unhappy  during 
their  whole  life,  perpetually  assailed  by 
the  melancholy  ideas  of  a  fatal  God 
their  disordered  imagination  shows 
them  every  instant.  Under  such  a  for- 
midable God,  a  tranquil  and  peaceable 
devotee  is  a  man  who  has  not  reasoned 
upon  him. 

In  short,  every  thing  proves  that  re- 
ligious ideas  /have  the  strongest  influ- 
ence over  men  to  torment,  divide,  and 
render  them  unhappy;  they  inflame  the 
mind,  envenom  the  passions,  without 
ever  restraining  them,  except  when  the 
temperament  proves  too  feeble  to  propel 
them  forward. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Theological  Notions  cannot  be  (he  Basis  of 
Morality.       Comparison    between     Theo- 
logical Morality  and  Natural   Morality. 
Theology  Prejudicial   to  the  Progress  of 
the  Human  Mind. 

A  SUPPOSITION  to  be  useful  to  men, 
ought  to  render  them  happy.  What 
right  have  we  to  flatter  ourselves  that 
an  hypothesis  which  here  makes  only 


MORALITY,    AND   NATURAL   MORALITY. 


275 


unhappy  being?,  may  one  day  conduct  j 
us  to  permanent  felicity?      If  God  has  ! 
only  made   mortals  to  tremble  and  to 
groan  in  this  world,  of  which  they  have 
a  knowledge,   upon    what   foundation  ; 
can  they  expect  that  he  will,  in  the  end, 
treat  them  with  more  gentleness  in  an  i 
unknown  world.     If  we  see  a  man  com-  | 
mil  crying  injustice,  even  transiently, 
ought  it  not  to  render  him  extremely 
suspected  by  us,  and  make  him  forever 
forfeit  cur  confidence? 

On  the  other  hand,  a  supposition 
which  should  throw  light  on  every 
thing,  or  which  should  give  an  easy  so- 
lution to  all  the  questions  to  which  it 
could  be  applied,  when  even  it  should 
not  be  able  to  demonstrate  the  certi- 
tude, would  probably  be  true :  but  a 
system  which  should  only  obscure  the 
clearest  notions,  and  render  more  insol- 
uble all  the  problems  desired  to  be 
resolved  by  its  means,  would  most  cer- 
tainly be  looked  upon  as  false,  as  use- 
less, as  dangerous.  To  convince  our- 
selves of  this  principle,  let  us  examine, 
without  prejudice,  if  the  existence  of 
the  theological  God  has  ever  giv- 
en the  solution  of  any  one  difficulty. 
Has  the  human  understanding  pro- 
gressed a  single  step  by  the  assistance 
of  theology  1  This  science,  so  impor- 
tant and  so  sublime,  has  it  not  totally 
obscured  morality  ?  Has  it  not  render- 
ed the  most  essential  duties  of  our  na- 
ture doubtful  and  problematical  1  Has 
it  not  shamefully  confounded  all  no- 
tions of  justice  and  injustice,  of  vice 
and  of  virtue?  Indeed,  what  is  virtue 
in  the  ideas  of  our  theologians  ?  It  is, 
they  will  tell  us,  that  which  is  conform- 
able to  the  will  of  the  incomprehensible 
being  who  governs  nature.  But  what 
is  this  being,  of  whom  they  are  unceas- 
ingly speaking  without  being  able  to 
comprehend  it ;  and  how  can  we  have 
a  knowledge  of  his  will?  They  will 
forthwith  tell  you  what  this  being  is 
not,  without  ever  being  capable  of  tell- 
ing you  what  he  is ;  if  they  do  under- 
take to  give  you  an  idea  of  him.  they 
will  heap  upon  this  hypothetical  being 
a  multitude  of  contradictory  and  incom- 
patible attributes,  which  will  form  a 
chimera  impossible  to  be  conceived  ;  or 
else  they  will  refer  you  to  those  super- 
natural revelations,  by  which  this  phan- 
tom has  made  known  his  divine  inten- 
tions to  men.  But  how  will  they  prove 


the  authenticity  of  these  revelations? 
it  will  be  by  miracles  !  How  can  we 
believe  miracles,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  are  contrary  even  to  those  notions 
which  theology  gives  us  of  its  intelli- 
gent, immutable,  and  omnipotent  Di- 
vinity 1  As  a  last  resource,  then,  it 
will  be  necessary  to  give  credit  to  the 
honesty  and  good  faith  of  the  priests, 
who  are  charged  with  announcing  the 
divine  oracles.  But  who  will  assure 
us  of  their  mission  ?  Are  they  not  these 
priests  themselves  who  announce  to 
us,  that  they  are  the  infallible  inter- 
preters of  a  God  whom  they  acknow- 
ledge they  do  not  know.  This  granted, 
the  priests,  that  is  to  say,  men  ex- 
tremely suspicious,  and  but  little  in 
harmony  among  themselves,  will  be 
the  arbiters  of  morality  ;  they  will  de- 
cide, according  to  their  uncertain  know- 
ledge, or  their  passions,  those  laws 
which  ought  to  be  followed  ;  enthusi- 
asm or  interest  are  the  only  standard 
of  their  decisions  ;  their  morality  is  as 
variable  as  their  whims  and  their  ca- 
price ;  those  who  listen  to  them  will 
never  know  to  what  line  of  conduct 
they  should  adhere ;  in  their  inspired 
books,  we  shall  always  find  a  Divinity 
of  little  morality,  who  will  sometimes 
command  crime  and  absurdity  ;  who 
will  sometimes  be  the  friend  and  some- 
times the  enemy  of  the  human  race  ; 
who  will  sometimes  be  benevolent, 
reasonable,  and  just ;  and  who  will 
sometimes  be  irrational,  capricious,  un- 
just, and  despotic.  What  will  result 
from  all  this-  to  a  rational  man  ?  It  will 
be,  that  neither  inconstant  Gods  nor 
their  priests,  whose  interests  vary  every 
moment,  can  be  the  models  or  the 
arbiters  of  a  morality  which  ought  to 
be  as  regular  and  as  certain  as  the  in- 
variable laws  of  nature,  from  which 
we  never  see  her  derogate. 

No  !  arbitrary  and  inconclusive  opin- 
ions, contradictory  notions,  abstract 
and  unintelligible  speculations,  can 
never  serve  for  the  basis  of  the  science 
of  morals.  They  must  be  evident 
principles,  deduced  from  the  nature  of 
man,  founded  upon  his  wants,  inspired 
by  education,  rendered  familiar  by 
habit,  made  sacred  by  laws  :  these  will 
carry  conviction  to  our  minds,  will 
render  virtue  useful  and  dear  to  us,  and 
will  people  nations  with  honest  men 
and  good  citizens.  A  God,  necessarily 


27B 


COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THEOLOGICAL 


incomprehensible,  presents  nothing  hut 
a  vague  idea  to  pur  imagination ;  a 
terrihle  God  leads  it  astray  ;  a  changea- 
ble God,  and  who  is  frequently  in  con- 
tradiction with  himself,  will  always 
prevent  us  from  ascertaining  the  road 
we  ought  to  pursue.  The  menaces 
made  to  us,  on  the  part  of  a  fantastical 
being,  who  is  unceasingly  in  contra- 
diction with  our  nature,  of  which  he  is 
the  author,  will  never  do  more  than 
render  virtue  disagreeable  ;  fear  alone 
will  make  us  practise  that  which  reason 
and  our  own  immediate  interest  ought 
to  make  Us  execute  with  pleasure.  A 
terrible  or  wicked  God,  which  is  one 
and  the  same  thing,  will  only  serve  to 
disturb  honest  people,  without  arrest- 
ing the  progress  of  the  profligate  and  fla- 
gitious ;  the  greater  part  of  men,  when 
they  shall  be  disposed  to  sin,  or  deliver 
themselves  up  to  vicious  propensities, 
will  cease  to  contemplate  the  terrible 
God,  and  will  only  see  the  merciful  God, 
who  is  filled  with  goodness  ;  men  never 
view  things  but  on  the  side  which  is 
most  conformable  to  their  desires. 

The  goodness  of  God  cheers  the 
wicked,  his  rigour  disturbs  the  honest 
man.  Thus,  the  qualities  which  the- 
ology attributes  to  its  God,  themselves 
turn  out  disadvantageous  to  sound  mo- 
rality. It  is  upon  this  infinite  goodness 
that  the  most  corrupt  men  will  have 
the  audacity  to  reckon  when  they  are 
hurried  along  by  crime,  or  given  up  to 
habitual  vice.  If,  then,  we  speak  to 
them  of  their  God,  they  tell  us  that 
God  is  good,  that  his  clemency  and 
his  mercy  are  infinite.  Does  not  super- 
stition, the  accomplice  of  the  iniquities 
of  mortals,  unceasingly  repeat  to  them, 
that  by  the  assistance  of  certain  cere- 
monies, of  certain  prayers,  of  certain 
acts  of  piety,  they  can  appease  the 
anger  of  their  God,  and  cause  them- 
selves to  be  received  with  open  arms 
by  this  softened  and  relenting  God  ? 
Do  not  the  priests  of  all  nations  pos- 
sess infallible  secrets  for  reconciling 
the  most  perverse  men  to  the  Divinity  ? 

It  must  be  concluded  from  this,  that 
under  whatever  point  of  view  the  Di- 
vinity is  considered,  he  cannot  serve 
for  the  basis  of  morality,  formed  to  be 
always  invariably  the  same.  An  iras- 
cible God  is  only  useful  to  those  who 
have  an  interest  in  terrifying  men,  that 
they  may  take  advantage  of  their  ig- 


norance, of  their  fears,  and  of  their 
expiations  ;  the  nobles  of  the  earth, 
who  are  commonly  mortals  the  most 
destitute  of  virtue  and  of  morals,  will 
not  see  this  formidable  God,  when  they 
shall  be  inclined  to  yield  to  their  pas- 
sions ;  they  will,  however,  make  use 
of  him  to  frighten  others,  to  the  end 
that  they  may  enslave  them,  and  keep 
them  under  their  guardianship,  whilst 
they  will  themselves  only  contemplate 
this  God  under  the  traits  of  his  good- 
ness ;  they  will  always  see  him  in- 
dulgent to  those  outrages  which  they 
commit  against  his  creatures,  provided 
they  have  a  respect  for  him  themselves ; 
besides,  religion  will  furnish  them  with 
easy  means  of  appeasing  his  wrath. 
This  religion  appears  to  have  been  in- 
vented only  to  furnish  to  the  ministers 
of  the  Divinity  an  opportunity  to  ex- 
piate the  crimes  of  human  nature. 

Morality  is  not  made  to  follow  the 
caprices  of  the  imagination,  the  pas- 
sions, and  the  interests  of  men :  it  ought 
to  possess  stability  ;  it  ought  to  be  the 
same  for  all  the  individuals  of  the  human 
race ;  it  ought  not  to  vary  in  one  country, 
or  in  one  time,  from  another  ;  religion 
has  no  right  to  make  its  immutable 
rules  bend  to  the  changeable  laws  of 
its  Gods.  There  is  only  one  method 
to  give  morality  this  firm  solidity  ;  we 
have  more  than  once,  in  the  course  of 
this  work,  pointed  it  out  ;*  there  is  no 
other  way  than  to  found  it  upon  our 
duties,  upon  the  nature  of  man,  upon 
the  relations  subsisting  between  intel- 
ligent beings,  who  are,  each  of  them, 
in  love  with  their  happiness,  and  oc- 
cupied with  conserving  themselves ; 
who  live  together  in  society,  that  they 
may  more  surely  attain  these  ends.  In 
short,  we  mus.t  take  for  the  basis  of 
morality  the  necessity  of  things. 

In  weighing  these  principles,  drawn 
from  nature,  which  are  self-evident, 
confirmed  by  constant  experience,  and 
approved  by  reason,  we  shall  have  a 
certain  morality,  and  a  system  of  con- 
duct, which  will  never  be  in  contra- 
diction with  itself.  Man  will  have  no 
occasion  to  recur  to  theological  chi- 
meras to  regulate  his  conduct  in  the 
visible  world.  We  shall  then  be  ca- 
pacitated to  reply  to  those  who  pretend 


*  See  vol.  i.  chap.  viii.  of  this  work ;  also 
what  is  said  in  chap,  xii.,  and  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  chap.  ziv.  of  the  same  volume. 


MORALITY  AND  NATURAL  MORALITY. 


277 


that  without  a  God,  there  cannot  be 
any  morality  ;  and  that  this  God,  by 
virtue  of  his  power  and  the  sovereign 
empire  which  belongs  to  him  over  his 
creatures,  has  alone  the  right  to  impose 
laws,  and  to  subject  them  to  those  du- 
ties to  which  they  are  compelled.  If 
we  reflect  on  the  long  train  of  errours 
and  of  wanderings  which  flow  from 
the  obscure  notions  we  have  of  the 
Divinity,  and  on  the  sinister  ideas 
which  all  religions  in  every  country 
give,  it  would  be  more  conformable 
to  truth  to  say,  that  all  sound  morality, 
all  morality  useful  to  the  human  spe- 
cies, all  morality  advantageous  to  so- 
ciety, is  totally  incompatible  with  a 
being  wko  is  never  presented  to  men 
but  under  the  form  of  an  absolute  mon- 
arch, whose  good  qualities  are  con- 
tinually eclipsed  by  dangerous  caprices : 
consequently,  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
acknowledge  that,  to  establish  morality 
upon  a  sure  foundation,  we  must  ne- 
cessarily commence  by  overturning  the 
chimerical  systems  upon  which  they 
have  hitherto  founded  the  ruinous  edi- 
fice of  supernatural  morality,  which, 
during  so  many  ages,  has  been  useless- 
ly preached  up  to  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause 
that  placed  man  in  the  abode  which  he 
inhabits,  and  that  gave  him  his  facul- 
ties ;  whether  we  consider  the  hu- 
man species  as  the  work  of  nature,  or 
whether  we  suppose  that  he  owes  his 
existence  to  an  intelligent  being,  dis- 
tinguished from  nature  ;  the  existence 
of  man,  such  as  he  is,  is  a  fact ;  we 
see  in  him  a  being  who  feels,  who 
thinks,  who  has  intelligence,  who  loves 
himself,  who  tends  to  his  own  con- 
servation ;  who,  in  every  moment  of 
his  life,  strives  to  render  his  existence 
agreeable ;  who,  the.  more  easily  to 
satisfy  his  wants,  and  to  procure  him- 
self pleasure,  lives  in  society  with 
beings  similar  to  himself,  whom  his 
conduct  can  render  favourable  or  dis- 
affected to  him.  It  is,  then,  upon  these 
general  sentiments,  inherent  in  our  na- 
ture, and  which  will  subsist  as  long  as 
the  race  of  mortals,  that  we  ought  to 
found  morality,  which  is  only  the  sci- 
ence of  the  duties  of  men  living  'in 
society. 

Here,  then,  are  the  true  foundations 
of  our  duties ;  these  duties  are  neces- 


sary, seeing  that  they  flow  from  our 
peculiar  nature,  and  that  we  cannot 
arrive  at  the  happiness  we  propose  to 
ourselves,  if  we  do  not  take  the  means 
without  which  we  shall  never  obtain 
it.  Then,  to  be  permanently  happy, 
we  are  obliged  to  merit  the  affection 
and  the  assistance  of  those  beings  with 
whom  we  are  associated ;  these  will 
not  take  upon  themselves  to  love  us, 
to  esteem  us,  to  assist  us  in  our  pro- 
jects, to  labour  to  our  peculiar  felicity, 
but  in  proportion  as  we  are  disposed 
to  labour  to  their  happiness.  It  is  this 
necessity  which  is  called  moral  obli-t 
gallon.  It  is  founded  upon  reflection, 
on  the  motives  capable  of  determining 
sensible  and  intelligent  beings,  who 
tend  towards  an  end,  to  follow  the  con- 
duct necessary  to  arrive  at  it.  These 
motives  can  be  in  us  only  the  desire, 
always  regenerating,  of  procuring  our- 
selves good,  and  of  avoiding  evil. 
Pleasure  and  pain,  the  hope  of  happi- 
ness or  the  fear  of  misery,  are  the  only 
motives  capable  of  having  an  effiacious 
influence  on  the  will  of  sensible  beings; 
to  compel  them,  then,  it  is  sufficient 
that  these  motives  exist,  and  may  be 
understood ;  to  know  them,  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  consider  our  constitution,  ac- 
cording to  which  we  can  love  or  ap- 
prove in  ourselves  only  those  actions 
from  whence  result  our  real  and  recip- 
rocal utility,  which  constitutes  virtue. 
In  consequence,  to  conserve  ourselves, 
to  enjoy  security,  we  are  compelled  to 
follow  the  conduct  necessary  to  this 
end  ;  to  interest  others  in  our  own  con- 
servation, we  are  obliged  to  interest 
ourselves  in  their's,  or  to  do  nothing 
that  may  interrupt  in  them  the  will  of 
co-operating  with  us  to  our  own  feli- 
city. Such  a/e  the  true  foundations 
of  moral  obligation. 

We  shall  always  deceive  ourselves, 
when  we  shall  give  any  other  basis  to 
morality  than  the  nature  of  man  ;  we 
cannot  have  any  that  is  more  solid  and 
more  certain.  Some  authors,  even  of 
integrity,  have  thought,  that,  to  render 
more  respectable  and  more  sacred,  in 
the  eyes  of  men,  those  duties  which 
nature  imposes  on  them,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  clothe  them  with  the  authority 
of  a  being,  which  they  made  superior 
to  nature,  and  stronger  than  necessity. 
Theology  has,  in  consequence,  invaded 
morality,  or  has  strove  to  connect  it 


COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THEOLOGICAL 


with  the  religious  system;  it  has  been 
thought  that  this  union  would  render 
virtue  more  sacred  ;  that  the  fear  of 
the  invisible  power  who  governs  na- 
ture, would  give  more  weight  and  effi- 
cacy to  its  laws ;  in  short,  it  has  been 
imagined,  that  men,  persuaded  of  the 
necessity  of  morality,  m  seeing  it  united 
with  religion,  would  look  upon  this  re- 
ligion itself  as  necessary  to  their  hap- 
piness. Indeed,  it  is  the  supposition 
that  a  God  is  necessary  to  support 
morality,  that  sustains  the  theological 
ideas,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  reli- 
.gious  systems  of  the  earth  ;  it  is  ima- 
gined that,  without  a  God,  man  would 
neither  have  a  knowledge  of,  nor  prac- 
tise that  which  he  owes  to  others. 
This  prejudice  once  established,  it  is 
always  believed  that  the  vague  ideas 
of  a  metaphysical  God  are  in  such  a 
manner  connected  with  morality  and 
the  welfare  of  society,  that  the  Divinity 
cannot  be  attacked  without  overturn- 
ing at  the  same  time  the  duties  of  na- 
ture. It  is  thought,  that  want,  the 
desire  of  happiness,  the  evident  interest 
of  society,  and  of  individuals,  would 
be  impotent  motives,  if  they  did  not 
borrow  all  their  force  and  their  sanc- 
tion from  an  imaginary  being  who  has 
been  made  the  arbiter  of  all  things. 

But  it  is  always  dangerous  to  con- 
nect fiction  with  truth,  the  unknown 
with  the  known,  the  delirium  of  en- 
thusiasm with  the  tranquillity  of  reason. 
Indeed,  what  has  resulted  from  the 
confused  alliance  which  theology  has 
made  of  its  marvellous  chimeras  with 
realities?  The  imagination  bewildered, 
truth  is  mistaken  ;  religion,  by  the  aid 
of  its  phantom,  would  command  na- 
ture, make  reason  bend  under  its  yoke, 
subject  man  to  its  own  peculiar  ca- 
prices, and  frequently,  in  the  name  of 
the  Divinity,  it  obliges  him  to  stifle 
his  nature,  and  to  piously  violate  most 
evident  duties  of  morality.  When  this 
same  religion  Avas  desirous  of  restrain- 
ing mortals  whom  it  had  taken  care  to 
render  blind  and  irrational,  it  gave 
them  only  ideal  curbs  and  motives  ;  it 
could  substitute  only  imaginary  causes 
to  true  causes  ;  marvellous  and  super- 
natural motive-powers  to  those  which 
were  natural  and  known  ;  romances 
and  fables,  to  realities.  By  this  in- 
version of  principles,  morality  no  longer 
had  any  fixed  basis  ;  nature,  reason, 


virtue,  demonstrations,  depended  upon 
an  ^indefinable  God,  who  never  spoke 
distinctly,  who  silenced  reason,  who 
only  explained  himself  by  inspired  be- 
ings, by  impostors,  by  fanatics,  whose 
delirium  or  the  desire  of  profiting  by 
the  wanderings  of  men,  interested  them 
in  preaching  up  only  an  abject  sub- 
mission, factitious  virtues,  frivolous 
ceremonies ;  in  short,  an  arbitrary  mo- 
rality, conformable  to  their  own  pecu- 
liar passions,  and  frequently  very  pre- 
judicial to  the  rest  of  the  human 
species. 

Thus,  in  making  morality  flow  from 
God,  they  in  reality  subjected  it  to  the 
passions  of  men.  In  being  disposed  to 
found  it  upon  a  chimera,  they  founded 
it  upon  nothing ;  in  deriving  it  from 
an  imaginary  being,  of  whom  every- 
one forms  to  himself  a  different  notion, 
of  whom  the  obscure  oracles  were  in- 
terpreted either  by  men  in  a  delirium, 
or  by 'knaves;  in  establishing  it  upon 
his  pretended  will,  goodness,  or  malig- 
nity ;  in  short,  in  proposing  to  man,  for 
his  model,  a  being  who  is  supposed  to 
be  changeable,  the  theologians,  far 
from  giving  to  morality  a  steady  basis, 
have  weakened,  or  even  annihilated 
that  which  is  given  by  nature,  and  have 
substituted  in  its  place  nothing  but 
incertitude.  This  God,  by  the  quali- 
ties which  are  given  him,  is  an  inex- 
plicable enigma,  which  each  expounds 
after  his  own  manner,  which  each  re- 
ligion explains  in  its  own  mode,  in 
which  all  the  theologians  of  the  world 
discover  every  thing  that  suits  their 
purpose,  and  according  to  which  each 
man  separately  forms  his  morals,  con- 
formable to  his  peculiar  character.  If 
God  tells  the  gentle,  indulgent,  equita- 
ble man  to  be  good,  compassionate,  and 
benevolent,  he  tells  the  furious  man, 
who  is  destitute  of  compassion,  to  be 
intolerant,  inhuman,  and  without  pity. 
The  morality  of  this  God  varies  in 
each  man,  from  one  country  to  another: 
some  people  shiver  with  horrour  at  the 
sight  of  those  actions  which  other  peo- 
ple look  upon  as  sacred  and  meritorious. 
Some  see  God  filled  with  gentleness 
and  mercy  ;  others  judge  him  to  be 
cruel,  and  imagine  that  it  is  by  cruel- 
tits  they  can  acquire  the  advantage  of 
pleasing  him. 

The  morality  of  nature  is  clear ;  it  is 
evident  even  to  those  who  outrage  it.  It 


MORALITY  AND  NATURAL  MORALITY. 


279 


is  not  so  with  religious  morality,  this 
is  as  obscure  as  the  Divinity  who  pre- 
scribes it,  or  rather  as  changeable  as 
the  passions  and  the  temperaments  of 
those  who  make  him  speak,  or  who 
adore  him.  If  it  were  left  to  the  the- 
ologians, morality  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  science  the  most  proble- 
matical, the  most  uncertain,  and  the 
most  difficult  to  fix.  It  would  require 
the  most  subtile  or  the  most  profound 
genius,  the  most  penetrating  and  active 
mind,  to  discover  the  principles  of  the 
duties  of  man  towards  himself  and 
others.  Are  not,  then,  the  true  sources 
of  morality  calculated  to  be  known 
only  to  a  small  number  of  thinkers  or 
of  metaphysicians  1  To  derive  it  from 
a  God,  whom  nobody  sees  but  within 
himself,  and  which  each  modifies  after 
his  own  peculiar  ideas,  is  to  submit  it 
to  the  caprice  of  each  man  ;  to  derive 
it  from  a  being  which  no  man  upon  the 
earth  can  boast  of  knowing,  is  to  say 
they  do  not  know  whence  it  could  come 
to  us.  Whatever  may  be  the  agent 
upon  whom  they  make  nature,  and  all 
the  beings  which  it  contains,  depend, 
whatever  power  they  may  suppose  him 
to  have,  it  is  very  possible  that  man 
should  or  should  not  exist ;  but  as  soon 
as  he  shall  have  made  him  what  he  is, 
when  he  shall  have  rendered  him  sen- 
sible, in  love  with  his  own  being,  and 
living  in  society,  he  cannot,  without 
annihilating  or  new-moulding  him, 
cause  him  to  exist  otherwise  than  he 
does.  According  to  his  actual  essence, 
qualities,  and  modifications,  which  con- 
stitute him  a  being  of  the  human  spe- 
cies, morality  is  necessary  to  him,  and 
the  desire  of  conserving  himself  will 
make  him  prefer  virtue  to  vice,  by  the 
same  necessity  that  it  makes  him  pre- 
fer pleasure  to  pain.* 

To  say  that  man  cannot  possess  any 
moral  sentiments  without  the  idea  of 


*  According  to  theology,  man  has  occa- 
sion for  supernatural  grace  to  do  good  :  this 
doctrine  was,  without  doubt,  very  hurtful  to 
sound  morality.  Men  always  waited  for  the 
call  from  above  to  do  good,  and  those  who 
governed  them  never  employed  the  calls  from 
below,  that  is  to  say,  the  natural  motives  to 
excite  them  to  virtue.  Nevertheless,  Tertul- 
lian  says  to  us :  "  Wherefore  will  ye  trouble 
yourselves,  seeking  after  the  law  of  God, 
whilst  ye  have  that  which  is  common  to  all 
the  world,  and  which  is  written  on  the  tablets 
of  nature  V—Tcrtull.  DC  Corona  Militis. 


God,  is  to  say  that  he  cannot  distin- 
guish vice  from  virtue  ;  it  is  to  pretend 
that,  without  the  idea  of  God,  man 
would  not  feel  the  necessity  of  eating 
to  live,  would  not  make  any  distinction 
or  choice  in  his  food  :  it  is  to  pretend 
that,  without  being  acquainted  with  the 
name,  the  character,  and  the  qualities 
of  him  who  prepares  a  mess  for  us,  we 
are  not  in  a  state  to  judge  whether 
this  mess  be  agreeable  or  disagreeable, 
good  or  bad.  He  who  does  not  know 
what  opinion  to  hold  upon  the  exist- 
ence and  the  moral  attributes  of  a  God, 
or  who  formally  denies  them,  cannot 
at  least  doubt  his  own  existence,  his 
own  qualities,  his  own  mode  of  feeling 
and  of  judging :  neither  can  he  doubt 
the  existence  of  other  organized  beings 
like  himself,  in  whom  every  thing  dis- 
covers to  him  qualities  analogous  with 
his  own,  and  of  whom  he  can,  by  cer- 
tain actions,  attract  the  love  or  the 
hatred,  the  assistance  or  the  ill-will,  the 
esteem  or  the  contempt :  this  know- 
ledge is  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  dis- 
tinguish rhoral  good  and  evil.  In  short, 
every  man  enjoying  a  well-ordered 
organization,' or  the  faculty  of  making 
true  experience,  will  only  have  to  con- 
template himself,  in  order  to  discover 
what  he  owes  to  others :  his  own  na- 
ture will  enlighten  him  much  better 
upon  his  duties  than  those  Gods,  in 
which  he  can  only  consult  his  own 
passions,  or  those  of  some  enthusiasts 
or  impostors.  He  will  allow,  that  to 
conserve  himself,  and  secure  his  own 
permanent  wellbeing,  he  is  obliged  to 
resist  the  impulse,  frequently  blind,  of 
his  own  desires  ;  and  that  to  conciliate 
the  benevolence  of  others,  he  must  act 
in  a  mode  conformable  to  their  advan- 
tage ;  in  reasoning  thus,  he  will  find 
out  what  virtue  is  ;*  if  he  put  this 


*  Hitherto  theology  has  not  known  how  to 
give  a  true  definition  of  virtue.  According  to 
it,  it  is  an  effect  of  grace,  that  disposes  us  to 
do  that  which  is  agreeable  to  the  Divinity. 
But  what  is  the  Divinity?  What  is  grace? 
How  does  it  act  upon  man  ?  What  is  that 
which  is  agreeable  to  God  1  Wherefore  does 
not  this  God  give  to  all  men  the  grace  to  do 
that  which  is  agreeable  in  his  eyes?  Adhuc 
sub  judice  Us  est.  3Ien  are  unceasingly  told 
to  do  good,  because  God  requires  it ;  never 
have  they  been  informed  what  it  was  to  do 
good,  and  priests  have  never  been  able  to  tell 
them  what  God  was,  nor  that  which  he  was 
desirous  they  should  do. 


COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THEOLOGICAL 


theory  into  practice,  he  will  he  virtuous ; 
he  will  be  rewarded  for  his  conduct, 
by  the  happy  harmony  of  his  machine, 
by  the  legitimate  esteem  of  himself, 
confirmed  by  the  kindness  of  others  : 
if  he  act  in  a  contrary  mode,  the  trouble 
and  the  disorder  of  his  machine  will 
quickly  warn  him  that  nature,  whom 
•  he  thwarts,  disapproves  his  conduct, 
which  is  injurious  to  himself,  and  he 
will  be  obliged  to  add  the  condemna- 
tion of  others,  Avho  will  hate  him  and 
blame  his  actions.  If  the  wanderings 
of  his  mind  prevent  him  from  seeing 
the  most  immediate  consequences  of 
his  irregularities,  neither  will  he  per- 
ceive the  distant  rewards  and  punish- 
ments of  the  invisible  monarch,  whom 
they  have  so  vainly  placed  in  the  em- 
pyreum ;  this  God  will  never  speak  to 
him  in  so  distinct  a  manner  as  his 
conscience,  which  will  either  reward 
him  or  punish  him  on  the  spot. 

Every  thing  that  has  been  advanced, 
evidenly  proves,  that  religious  morality 
is  an  infinite  loser,  when  compared 
with  the  morality  of  nature,  with  which 
it  is  found  in  perpetual  contradiction. 
Nature  invites  man  to  love  himself,  to 
preserve  himself,  to  incessantly  aug- 
ment the  sum  of  his  happiness :  reli- 
gion orders  him  to  love  only  a  formi- 
dable God,  that  deserves  to  be  hated  ; 
to  detest  himself,  to  sacrifice  to  his 
frightful  idol  the  most  pleasing  and 
legitimate  pleasures  of  his  heart.  Na- 
ture tells  man  to  consult  reason,  and  to 
take  it  for  his  guide  :  religion  teaches 
him  that  his  reason  is  corrupted,  that 
it  is  only  a  treacherous  guide,  given 
by  a  deceitful  God  to  lead  his  creatures 
astray.  Nature  tells  man  to  enlighten 
himself,  to  search  after  truth,  to  in- 
struct himself  in  his  duties :  religion 
enjoins  him  to  examine  nothing,  to  re- 
main in  ignorance,  to  fear  truth ;  it 
persuades  him,  that  there  are  no  rela- 
tions more  important  than  those  which 
subsist  between  him  and  a  being  of 
whom  he  will  never  have  any  know- 
ledge. Nature  tells  the  being  who  is 
in  love  with  his  welfare,  to  moderate 
his  passions,  to  resist  them  when  they 
are  destructive  to  himself,  to  counter- 
balance them  by  real  motives  borrowed 
from  experience :  religion  tells  the 
sensible  being  to  have  no  passions,  to 
be  an  insensible  mass,  or  to  combat 
his  propensities  by  motives  borrowed 


from  the  imagination,  and  variable  as 
itself.  Nature  tells  man  to  be  sociable, 
to  love  his  fellow-creatures,  to  be  just, 
peaceable,  indulgent,  and  benevolent, 
to  cause  or  suffer  his  associates  to  en- 
joy their  opinions  :  religion  counsels 
him  to  fly  society,  to  detach  himself 
from  his  fellow-creatures,  to  hate  them, 
when  their  imagination  does  not  pro- 
cure them  dreams  conformable  to  his 
own,  to  break  the  most  sacred  bonds 
to  please  his  God,  to  torment,  to  afflict, 
to  persecute,  and  to  massacre  those  who 
will  not  be  mad  after  his  own  manner. 
Nature  tells  man  in  society  to  cherish 
glory,  to  labour  to  render  himself  esti- 
mable, to  be  active,  courageous,  and 
industrious :  religion  tells  him  to  be 
humble,  abject,  pusillanimous,  to  live 
in  obscurity,  to  occupy  himself  with 
prayers,  with  meditations,  and  with 
ceremonies  ;  it  says  to  him,  be  useful 
to  thyself,  and  do  nothing  for  others.* 
Nature  proposes  to  the  citizen  for  a 
model,  men  endued  with  honest,  noble, 
energetic  souls,  who  have  usefnlly 
served  their  fellow-citizens ;  religion 
commends  to  them  abject  souls,  extols 
pious  enthusiasts,  frantic  penitents, 
fanatics,  who,  for  the  most  ridiculous 
opinions,  have  disturbed  empires.  Na- 
ture tells  the  husband  to  be  tender,  to 
attach  himself  to  the  company  of  his 
mate,  and  to  cherish  her  in  his  bosom  : 
religion  makes  a  crime  of  his  tender- 
ness, and  frequently  obliges  him  to 
look  upon  the  conjugal  bonds  as  a  state 
of  pollution  and  imperfection.  Nature 
tells  the  father  to  cherish  his  children, 
and  to  make  them  useful  members  of 
society:  religion  tells  him  to  rear  them 
in  the  fear  of  God,  and  to  make  them 
blind  and  superstitious,  incapable  of 
serving  society,  but  extremely  well  cal- 
culated to  disturb  its  repose.  Nature 
tells  children  to  honour,  to  love,  to 
listen  to  their  parents,  to  be  the  sup- 
port of  their  old  age  :  religion  tells 
them  to  prefer  the  oracles  of  their  God, 
and  to  trample  father  and  mother  under 
feet,in  support  of  the  divine  interests. 
Nature  says  to  the  philosopher,  occupy 


*  It  is  very  easy  to  perceive  that  religious 
worship  does  a  real  injury  to  political  socie- 
ties, by  the  loss  of  time,  by  the  laziness  and 
inaction  which  it  causes,  and  of  which  it 
makes  a  duty.  Indeed,  religion  suspends  the 
most  useful  labours  during  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  year. 


MORALITY  AND  NATURAL  MORALITY. 


251 


thyself  with  useful  objects,  consecrate 
thy  cares  to  thy  country,  make  for  it 
advantageous  discoveries,  calculated  to 
perfectionate  its  condition :  religion  says 
to  him,  occupy  thyself  with  useless 
reveries,  with  endless  disputes,  with 
researches  suitable  to  sow  the  seeds  of 
discord  and  carnage,  and  obstinately 
maintain  opinions,  which  thou  wilt 
never  understand  thyself.  Nature  tells 
the  perverse  man  to  blush  for  his  vices, 
for  his  shameful  propensities,  for  his 
crimes  ;  it  shows  him,  that  his  most 
secret  irregularities  will  necessarily 
have  an  influence  on  his  own  felicity  : 
religion  says  to  the  most  corrupted  and 
wicked  man,  "  Do  not  irritate  a  God, 
whom  thou  knowest  not;  but  if,  against 
his  laws,  thou  deliverest  thyself  up  to 
crime,  remember  that  he  will  be  easily 
appeased  ;  go  into  his  temple,  humiliate 
thyself  at  the  feet  of  his  ministers,  ex- 
piate thy  transgressions  by  sacrifices, 
by  offerings,  by  ceremonies,  and  by 
prayers :  these  important  ceremonies 
will  pacify  thy  conscience,  and  cleanse 
thee  in  the  eyes  of  the  Eternal." 

The  citizen,  or  the  man  in  society, 
is  not  less  depraved  by  religion,  which 
is  always  in  contradiction  with  sound 
politics.  Nature  says  to  man,  thou 
art  free,  no  power  on  earth  can  legit- 
imately deprive  thee  of  thy  rights : 
religion  cries  out  to^him,  that  he  is  a 
slave,  condemned  by  his  God  to  groan 
all  his  life  under  the  iron  rod  of  his 
representatives.  Nature  tells  man  to 
love  the  country  which  gave  him  birth, 
to  serve  it  faithfully,  to  blend  his  in- 
terests with  it  against  all  those  who 
shall  attempt  to  injure  it :  religion  or- 
ders him  to  obey,  without  murmuring, 
the  tyrants  who  oppress  his  country, 
to  serve  them  against  it,  to  merit  their 
favours,  by  enslaving  their  fellow-citi- 
zens, under  their  unruly  caprices.  Nev- 
ertheless, if  the  sovereign  be  not  suffi- 
ciently devoted  to  his  priests,  religion 
quickly  changes  its  language  ;  it  calls 
upon  subjects  to  become  rebels,  it  makes 
it  a  duty  in  them  to  resist  their  master, 
it  cries  out  to  them,  that  it  is  better  to 
obey  God  than  man.  Nature  tells 
princes  they  are  men  ;  that  it  is  not 
their  whim  that  can  decide  what  is 
just,  and  what  is  unjust,  that  the  pub- 
lic will  maketh  the  law  :  religion, 
sometimes  says  to  them,  that  they  are 
Gods,  to  whom  nothing  in  this  world 

No.  IX.— 36    , 


ought  to  offer  resistance ;  sometimes  it 
transforms  them  into  tyrants  whom 
enraged  Heaven  is  desirous  should  be 
immolated  to  its  wrath. 

Religion  corrupts  princes ;  these 
princes  corrupt  the  law,  which,  like 
themselves,  becomes  unjust ;  all  the 
institutions  are  perverted ;  education 
forms  only  men  who  are  base,  blinded 
with  prejudices,  smitten  with  vain  ob- 
jects, with  riches,  with  pleasures  which 
they  can  obtain  only  by  iniquitous 
means :  nature  is  mistaken,  reason  is 
disdained,  virtue  is  only  a  chimera, 
quickly  sacrificed  to  the  slightest  in- 
terest ;  and  religion,  far  from  remedy- 
ing these  evils,  to  which  it  has  given 
birth,  does  no  more  than  aggravate 
them  still  farther  ;  or  else  only  causeg 
steril  regret,  which  it  quickly  effaces  ; 
and  thus  man  is  obliged  to  yield  to 
the  torrent  of  habit,  of  example,  of  pro- 
pensities, and  of  dissipation,  which 
conspire  to  hurry  all  his  species  to 
commit  crimes,  who  will  not  renounce 
their  own  wellbeing. 

Here  is  the  mode  in  which  religion 
and  politics  unite  their  efforts  to  per- 
vert, abuse,  and  poison  the  heart  of 
man  ;  all  the  human  institutions  ap- 
pear to  have  only  for  their  object  to 
render  man  base  or  wicked.  Do  not, 
then,  let  us  be  at  all  astonished,  if 
morality  is  every  where  only  a  barren 
speculation,  from  which  every  one  is 
obliged  to  deviate  in  practice,  if  he  will 
not  risk  the  rendering  himself  unhappy. 
Men  can  be  moral  only  when  renoun- 
cing their  prejudices,  they  consult  their 
nature ;  but  the  continual  impulses, 
which  their  minds  are  receiving  every 
moment,  on  the  part  of  more  powerful 
motives,  quickly  oblige  them  to  forget 
those  rules  which  nature  points  out  to 
them.  They  are  continually  floating 
between  vice  and  virtue ;  we  see  them 
unceasingly  in  contradiction  with  them- 
selves ;  if  sometimes  they  feel  the 
value  of  an  honest  conduct,  experience 
very  soon  shows  them  that  this  con- 
duct cannot  lead  them  to  any  thing 
good,  and  can  even  become  an  invin- 
cible obstacle  to  that  happiness  which 
their  heart  never  ceases  to  search  after. 
In  corrupt  societies  it  is  necessary  to 
become  corrupt,  in  order  to  become 
happy. 

Citizens,  led  astray  at  the  same  time 
both  by  their  spiritual  and  temporal 


282 


COMPARISON  BETWEEN    THEOLOGICAL 


guides,  neither  knew  reason  nor  virtue. 
The  slaves  of  both  Gods  and  men, 
they  had  all  the  vices  attached  to  slave- 
ry ;  kept  in  a  perpetual  state  of  in- 
fancy, they  had  neither  knowledge  nor 
principles  ;  those  who  preached  up  vir- 
tue to  them,  knew  nothing  of  it  them- 
selves, and  could  not  undeceive  them 
with  respect  to  those  playthings  in 
which  they  had  learned  to  make  their 
happiness  consist.  In  vain  they  cried 
out  to  them  to  stifle  those  passions 
which  every  thing  conspired  to  un- 
loose :  in  vain  they  made  the  thunder 
of  the  Gods  roll  to  intimidate  men, 
whom  tumultuous  passions  rendered 
deaf.  It  was  quickly  perceived,  that 
the  Gods  of  heaven  were  much  less 
feared  than  those  of  the  earth ;  that 
the  favours  of  these  procured  a  much 
more  certain  wellbeing  than  the  pro- 
mises of  the  others  ;  that  the  riches  of 
this  world  were  preferable  to  the  trea- 
sures which  heaven  reserved  for  its 
favourites ;  that  it  was  much  more  ad- 
vantageous for  men  to  conform  them- 
selves to  the  views  of  visible  powers 
than  to  those  of  powers  whom  they 
never  saw. 

In  short,  society,  corrupted  by  its 
chiefs,  and  guided  by  their  caprices, 
could  only  bring  forth  corrupt  children. 
It  gave  birth  only  to  avaricious,  ambi- 
tious, jealous,  and  dissolute  citizens, 
who  never  saw  any  thing  happy  but 
crime,  who  beheld  meanness  rewarded, 
incapacity  honoured,  fortune  adored, 
rapine  favoured,  and  debauchery  es- 
teemed ;  who  every  where  found  tal- 
ents discouraged,  virtue  neglected, 
truth  proscribed,  elevation  of  soul 
crushed,  justice  trodden  Under  feet, 
moderation  languishing  in  misery,  and 
obliged  to  groan  under  the  weight  of 
haughty  injustice. 

In  the  midst  of  this  disorder,  of  this 
confusion  of  ideas,  the  precepts  of  mo- 
rality could  only  be  vague  declama- 
tions, incapable  of  convincing  any  one. 
What  barrier  can  religion,  with  its 
imaginary  motive-powers,  oppose  to 
the  general  corruption  ?  When  it 
spake  reason,  it  was  not  heard ;  its 
Gods  were  not  sufficiently  strong  to 
resist  the  torrent ;  its  menaces  could 
not  arrest  those  hearts  which  every 
thing  hurried  on  to  evil ;  its  distant 
promises  could  not  counterbalance  pre- 
sent advantages ;  its  expiations,  always 


ready  to  cleanse  mortals  from  their  ini- 
quities, emboldened  them  to  persevere 
in  crime ;  its  frivolous  ceremonies 
calmed  their  consciences  ;  in  short,  its 
zeal,  its  disputes,  and  its  whims,  only 
multiplied  and  exasperated  the  evils 
with  which  society  found  itself  af- 
flicted ;  in  the  most  vitiated  nations, 
there  were  a  multitude  of  devotees, 
and  very  few  honest  men.  Great  and 
small  listened  to  religion  when  it  ap- 
peared favourable  to  their  passions  ; 
they  listened  to  it  no  longer  when  it 
counteracted  them.  Whenever  this 
religion  was  conformable  to  morality, 
it  appeared  incommodious  it  was  only 
folloAved  when  it  combated  morality, 
or  totally  destroyed  it.  The  despot 
found  it  marvellous  when  it  assured 
him  he  was  a  God  upon  earth ;  that 
his  subjects  were  born  to  adore  him 
alone,  and  to  administer  to  his  phan- 
tasms. He  neglected  religion  when 
it  told  him  to  be  just :  from  hence  he 
saw  that  it  was  in  contradiction  with 
itself,  and  that  it  was  useless  to  preach 
equity  to  a  deified  mortal.  Besides, 
he  was  assured  that  his  God  would 
pardon  every  thing  as  soon  as  he 
should  consent  to  recur  to  his  priests, 
always  ready  to  reconcile  him.  The 
most  wicked  subjects  reckoned,  in  the 
same  manner,  upon  their  divine  assist- 
ance :  thus  religion,  far  from  restrain- 
ing them,  assured  them  of  impunity  ; 
its  menaces  could  not  destroy  the  ef- 
fects which  its  unworthy  flattery  had 
produced  in  princes;  these  same  men- 
aces could  not  annihilate  the  hopes 
which  its  expiations  furnished  to  all. 
Sovereigns,  puffed  up  with  pride,  or  al- 
ways certain  of  expiating  their  crimes, 
no  longer  feared  the  Gods ;  become 
Gods  themselves,  they  believed  they 
were  permitted  to  do  any  thing  against 
poor  pitiful  mortals,  whom  they  no 
longer  considered  in  any  other  light 
than  as  playthings,  destined  to  amuse 
them  on  this  earth. 

If  the  nature  of  man  were  consult- 
ed in  politics,  which  supernatural  ideas 
have  so  shamefully  depraved,  it  would 
completely  rectify  the  false  notions 
which  are  entertained  equally  by  sove- 
reigns and  subjects:  it  would  con- 
tribute, more  amply  than  all  the  reli- 
gions in  the  world,  to  render  society 
happy,  powerful,  and  flourishing  under 
rational  authority.  Nature  would  teach 


MORALITY  AND  NATURAL  MORALITY. 


them,  that  it  is  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
joying a  greater  quantum  of  happiness 
that  mortals  live  together  in  society ; 
that  it  is  its  own  conservation,  and  its 
felicity  that  every  society  should  have 
for  its  constant  and  invariable  end ; 
that  without  equity,  a  nation  only  re- 
sembles a  congregation  of  enemies  ; 
that  the  most  cruel  enemy  to  man  is 
he  who  deceives,  in  order  to  enslave 
him;  that  the  scourge  most  to  be 
feared  by  him  is  those  priests  who 
corrupt  his  chiefs,  and  who  assure 
them  of  impunity  for  their  crimes,  in 
the  name  of  the  Gods.  It  would  prove 
to  them,  that  association  is  a  misfor- 
tune under  unjust,  and  negligent,  and 
destructive  governments. 

This  nature,  interrogated  by  princes, 
would  teach  them,  that  they  are  men, 
and  not  Gods ;  that  their  power  is 
only  derived  from  the  consent  of  other 
men ;  that  they  are  citizens,  charged 
by  other  citizens  with  the  care  of 
watching  over  the  safety  of  the  whole  ; 
that  the  law  ought  to  be  only  the  ex- 
pression of  the  public  will,  and  that  it 
is  never  permitted  them  to  counteract 
nature,  or  to  thwart  the  invariable  end 
of  society.  This  nature  would  make 
these  monarchs  feel  that,  in  order  to  be 
truly  great  and  powerful,  they  ought 
to  command  elevated  and  virtuous 
minds,  and  not  minds  equally  degraded 
by  despotism  and  superstition.  This 
nature  would  teach  sovereigns  that,  in 
order  to  be  cherished  by  their  subjects, 
they  ought  to  afford  them  succours, 
and  cause  them  to  enjoy  those  benefits 
which  the  wants  of  their  nature  de- 
mand; that  they  ought  to  maintain 
them  inviolably  in  the  possession  of 
their  rights,  of  which  they  are  the  de- 
fenders and  the  guardians.  This  na- 
ture would  prove  to  all  those  princes 
who  should  deign  to  consult  her,  that 
it  is  only  by  good  works  and  kindness 
that  they  can  merit  the  love  and  attach- 
ment of  the  people  ;  that  oppression 
only  raises  up  enemies  against  them ; 
that  violence  procures  them  only  an 
unsteady  power ;  that  force  cannot  con- 
fer any  legitimate  right  on  them  ;  and 
that  beings  essentially  in  love  with 
happiness,  must  sooner  or  later  finish  ; 
by  revolting  against  an  authority  that  j 
only  makes  itself  felt  by  violence. 
This,  then,  is  the  manner-  in  which  na-  I 
ture  the  sovereign  of  all  beings,  and  j 


283 

to  whom  all  are  equal,  would  speak  to 
one  of  those  superb  monarchs  whom 
flattery  has  deified :    "  Untoward,  head- 
strong  child  !      Pigmy,   so   proud   of 
commanding  pigmies  !      Have    they, 
then,  assured  thee  that  thou   wert  a 
God  ?      Have  they  told  thee  that  thou 
wert   something   supernatural?      But 
know,  that  there  is  nothing  superior  to 
me.     Contemplate  thine  own  insignifi- 
cance, acknowledge  thine   impotence 
against  the  slightest  of  my  blows.      I 
can  break  thy  sceptre,  I  can  take  away 
thy  life,  I  can  reduce   thy   throne  to 
powder,  I  can  dissolve   thy   people,  I 
can  even  destroy  the  earth,  which  thou 
inhabitest :  and  thou  believest  thyself 
a  God !     Be,  then,  again  thyself;  hon- 
estly   avow    that    thou    art    a    man, 
made  to  submit  to  my  laws,  like  the 
least   of  thy   subjects.     Learn,  then, 
and  never  let  it  escape  thy  memory, 
that  thou  art  the  man  of  thy  people ; 
the  minister  of  thy  nation  ;  the  inter- 
preter and  the  executor  of  its  will ;  the 
fellow-citizen  of  those  whom  thou  hast 
the  right  of  commanding  only  because 
they  consent  to  obey  thee,  in  view  of 
the   wellbeing  which  thou  promisest 
to  procure  for  them.      Reign,  then,  on 
these  conditions  ;  fulfil  thy  sacred  en- 
gagements.   Be  benevolent,  and  above 
all,  equitable.      If  thou  art  willing  to 
have  thy  power  assured  to  thee,  never 
abuse  it ;    let  it  be  circumscribed  by 
the  immoveable  limits  of  eternal  jus- 
tice.    Be  the  father  of  thy  people,  and 
they  will  cherish  thee  as  thy  children. 
But  if  thou  neglectest  them ;  if  thou 
separates!  thine  interests  from  those  of 
thy  great  family ;  if  thou  refusest  to 
thy  subjects  the  happiness  which  thou 
owest  them;   if  thou  armest  thyself 
against  them,  thou  shalt  be  like  all 
tyrants,  the  slave  of  gloomy  care,  of 
alarm,  and  of  cruel  suspicion.      Thou 
wilt  become  the  victim  of  thine  own 
folly.     Thy  people,  in  despair,  will  no 
longer  acknowledge  thy  divine  rights. 
In  vain,  then,  thou   wouldst    sue  for 
aid  to  that  religion  which  has  deified 
thee ;  it  can  avail  nothing  with  those 
people  whom  misery  has  rendered  deaf; 
Heaven  will  abandon  thee  to  the  fury 
of  those  enemies  which  thy  phrensy 
shall  have  made  thee.     The  Gods  can 
effect  nothing  against  my  irrevocable  de- 
crees, which  will,  that  man  shall  be  irri- 
tated against  the  cause  of  his  sorrows." 


294 


COMPARISON  BETWEEN  THEOLOGICAL 


In  short,  every  thing  would  make 
known  to  rational  princes,  that  they 
have  no  occasion  for  Heaven  to  be 
faithfully  obeyed  on  earth ;  that  all  the 
powers  of  Heaven  will  not  sustain 
them  when  they  shall  act  the  tyrant, 
that  their  true  friends  are  those  who 
undeceive  the  people  of  their  delusion ; 
that  their  real  enemies  are  those  who 
intoxicate  them  with  flattery,  who  hard- 
en them  in  crime,  who  make  the  road 
to  heaven  too  easy  for  them  ;  who  feed 
them  with  chimeras,  calculated  to  draw 
them  aside  from  those  cares  and  those 
sentiments  which  they  owe  to  their 
nations.* 

It  is,  then,  I  repeat  it,  only  by  recon- 
ducting  men  to  nature  that  we  can 
procure  them  evident  notions,  and  cer- 
tain knowledge ;  it  is  only  by  show- 
ing them  their  true  relations  with  each 
other  that  we  can  place  them  on  the 
road  to  happiness.  The  human  mind, 
blinded  by  theology,  has  scarcely  ad- 
vanced a  single  step.  Man's  religious 
systems  have  rendered  him  dubious  of 
the  most  demonstrable  truths.  Super- 
stition influenced  every  thing,  and 
served  to  corrupt  all.  Philosophy,  guid- 
ed by  it,  was  no  longer  any  thing  more 
than  imaginary  science :  it  quitted  the 
real  world  to  plunge  into  the  ideal 
world  of  metaphysics ;  it  neglected  na- 
ture to  occupy  itself  with  Gods,  with 
spirits,  and  with  invisible  powers,  which 
only  served  to  render  all  questions  more 
obscure  and  more  complicated.  In  all 
difficulties,  they  brought  in  the  Divin- 
ity, and  from  thence  things  only  be- 
came more  and  more  perplexed,  until 
nothing  could  be  explained.  Theolo- 
gical notions  appear  to  have  been  in- 
vented only  to  put  man's  reasons  to 
flight,  to  confound  his  judgment,  to 
deceive  his  mind,  to  overturn  his  clear- 
est ideas  of  every  science.  In  the 
hands  of  the  theologians,  logic,  or  the 
art  of  reasoning,  was  nothing  more 
than  an  unintelligible  jargon,  calcu- 
lated to  support  sophism  and  falsehood, 
and  to  prove  the  most  palpable  contra- 
dictions. Morality  became,  as  we  have 
seen,  uncertain  and  wavering,  because 
it  was  founded  on  an  ideal  being,  who 
was  never  in  accord  with  himself; 

*  Ad  generum  cercris,  sine  ccede  et  vulnere 

pauci. 

Descendant  rcges  et  sicca  morte  tyranni. 
Juvenal,  sat.  xv.  110. 


his  goodness,  his  justice,  his  moral 
qualities,  and  his  useful  precepts,  were 
continually  contradicted  by  an  iniqui- 
tous conduct,  and  the  most  barbarous 
commands.  Politics,  as  we  have  said, 
were  perverted  by  the  false  ideas  which 
were  given  to  sovereigns  of  their  rights. 
Jurisprudence  and  the  laws  were  sub- 
jected to  the  caprice  of  religion,  who 
put  shackles  on  the  labour,  the  com- 
merce, the  industry,  and  the  activity  of 
nations.  Every  thing  was  sacrih'ced 
to  the  interests  of  the  theologians  ;  for 
every  science,  they  only  taught  ob- 
scure and  quarrelsome  metaphysics, 
which,  hundreds  of  times,  caused  the 
blood  of  those  people  to  flow  who 
were  incapable  of  understanding  it. 

Born  an  enemy  to  experience,  the- 
ology, that  supernatural  science,  was 
an  invincible  obstacle  to  the  progress 
of  the  natural  sciences,  as  it  almost 
always  threw  itself  in  their  way.  It 
was  not  permitted  for  natural  philoso- 
phy, for  natural  history,  or  for  anato- 
my, to  see  .any  thing  but  through  the 
medium  of  the  jaundiced  eye  of  su- 
perstition. The  most  evident  facts 
were  rejected  with  disdain,  and  pro- 
scribed with  horrour,  whenever  they 
could  not  be  made  to  square  with  the 
hypotheses  of  religion.f  In  short,  the- 
ology unceasingly  opposed  itself  to  the 
happiness  of  nations,  to  the  progress 
of  the  human  mind,  to  useful  research- 
es, and  to  the  liberty  of  thought :  it 
kept  man  in  ignorance,  all  his  steps 
guided  by  it  were  no  more  than  errours. 
Is  it  resolving  a  question  in  natural 
philosophy,  to  say  that  an  effect  which 
surprises  us,  that  an  unusual  phenom- 
enon, that  a  volcano,  a  deluge,  a  com- 
et, &c.,  are  signs  of  divine  wrath,  or 
works  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature  ? 
In  persuading  nations,  as  it  has  done, 
that  the  calamities,  whether  physical 


t  Virgil,  the  bishop  of  Saltzburg,  was  con- 
demned by  the  church,  for  having  dared  to 
maintain  the  existence  of  the  antipodes.  All 
the  world  are  acquainted  with  the  persecu- 
tions which  Galileo  suffered  for  pretending 
that  the  sun  did  not  make  its  revolution  round 
the  earth.  Descartes  was  put  to  death  in  a 
foreign  land.  Priests  have  a  right  to  be  ene- 
mies to  the  sciences ;  the  progress  of  reason 
will  annihilate,  sooner  or  later,  superstitious 
ideas.  Nothing  that  is  founded  on  nature 
and  on  truth  can  ever  be  lost;  the  works  of 
imagination  and  of  imposture  must  be  over- 
turned first  or  last. 


MORALITY,  AND  NATURAL  MORALITY. 


285 


or  moral,  which  they  experience,  are 
the  effects  of  the  will  of  God,  or  chas- 
tisements, which  his  power  inflicts  on 
them,  is  it  not  preventing  them  from 
seeking  after  remedies  for  these  evils  ?* 
Would  it'  not  have  been  more  useful 
to  have  studied  the  nature  of  things, 
and  to  seek  in  nature  herself,  in  human 
industry,  for  succours  against  those 
sorrows  with  which  mortals  are  afflict- 
ed, than  to  attribute  the  evil  which 
man  experiences  to  an  unknown  power, 


*  In  the  year  1725,  the  city  of  Paris  was 
afflicted  with  a  scarcity,  which  it  was  thought 
would  cause  an  insurrection  of  the  people ; 
they  brought  down  the  shrine  of  St.  Gene- 
vieve,  the  patroness  or  tutelary  goddess  of 
the  Parisians,  and  it  was  carried  in  procession 
to  cause  this  calamity  to  cease,  which  was 
brought  on  by  monopolies  in  which  the  mis- 
tress of  the  then  prime  minister  was  inter- 
ested. 

In  the  year  1795,  England  was  afflicted 
with  a  scarcity,  brought  on  by  an  ill  judged 
war  against  the  French  people,  for  having 
thrown  off  the  tyranny  of  their  monarchy, 
in  which  contest  immense  quantities  of  grain 
and  other  provisions  were  destroyed,  to  pre- 
vent them  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  French 
republicans,  and  also  by  the  dismemberment 
of  Poland  (the  granary  of  Europe)  by  the 
king  of  Prussia  and  the  emperess  of  Russia, 
whose  troops  laid  waste  every  thing  they  came 
near,  because  a  general  named  Kosciusko, 
of  the  most  exemplary  courage,  had,  with  a 
chosen  body  of  brave  Poles,  endeavoured, 
though  vainly,  to  prevent  the  cruel  injustice, 
by  opposing  force  to  force.  This  alarming 
scarcity  induced  a  meeting,  at  the  London 
Tavern,  in  London,  to  consider  of  the  means 
to  alleviate  the  distresses  of  the  English  peo- 
ple, which  proved  as  fruitless  as  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  Poles  to  these  crowned  robbers. 
At  this  meeting,  a  Doctor  Vincent,  a  Chris- 
tian priest,  and  the  then  master  of  Westmin- 
ster school,  made  a  grave  and  solemn  speech, 
in  which  he  attributed  the  whole  calamity  to 
the  chastisement  of  God  for  the  sins  of  the 
people. 

The  name  of  this  God  is  always  made  use 
of  by  wicked  and  abandoned  men  to  cover 
their  own  iniquities,  and  screen  themselves 
from  the  resentment  of  the  people ;  the  priests, 
those  pests  to  society,  who  are  immediately 
interested  in  their  peculations  and  oppressions, 
always  maintain  the  doctrine  of  these  de- 
signing knaves,  and  the  ignorance  of  the  citi- 
zens suffers  these  fables  to  pass  for  incontest- 
able truths:  it  is  thus  that  kingcraft  and 
priestcraft,  in  uniting  their  forces,  always 
keep  men  in  a  state  of  degrading  slavery, 
never  suffering  the  bandeau  of  delusion  to  be 
removed  from  before  their  eyes,  by  decreeing, 
in  the  name  of  God,  the  most  cruel  punish- 
ments against  those  who  attempt  to  throw 
the  light  of  day  on  the  secret  caverns  of  im- 
position and  despotism. 


against  whose  will  it  cannot  be  sup- 
posed there  is  any  relief?  The  study 
of  nature,  the  search  after  truth,  ele- 
vates the  mind,  expands  the  genius, 
and  is  calculated  to  render  man  active 
and  courageous ;  theological  notions 
appear  to  have  been  made  to  debase 
him,  to  contract  his  mind,  to  plunge 
him  into  despondency.*  In  the  place 
of  attributing  to  the  divine  vengeance 
those  wars,  those  famines,  those  ster- 
ilities, those  contagions,  and  that  mul- 
titude of  calamities  which  desolate  the 
people,  would  it  not  have  been  more 
useful,  and  more  consistent  with  truth, 
to  have  shown  that  these  evils  were  to 
be  ascribed  to  their  own  folly,  or  rather 
to  the  passions,  to  the  want  of  energy, 
and  to  the  tyranny  of  their  princes, 
who  sacrifice  nations  to  their  frightful 
delirium'?  These  irrational  people, 
instead  of  amusing  themselves  with 
expiations  for  their  pretended  crimes, 
and  seeking  to  render  themselves  ac- 
ceptable to  imaginary  powers,  should 
they  not  have  sought  in  a  more  rational 
administration  the  true  means  of  avoid- 
ing those  scourges  to  which  they  were 
the  victims  ?  Natural  evils  demand 
natural  remedies :  ought  not  experience 
long  since  to  have  convinced  mortals 
of  the  inefficacy  of  supernatural  reme- 
dies, of  expiations,  of  prayers,  of  sac- 
rifices, of  fasting,  of  processions,  &c., 
which  all  the  people  of  the  earth  have 
vainly  opposed  to  the  disasters  which 
they  experienced  1 

Let  us  then  conclude,  that  theology 
and  its  notions,  far  from  being  useful 
to  the  human  species,  are  the  true 
sources  of  all  those  sorrows  which  af- 
flict the  earth,  of  all  those  errours  by 
which  men  are  blinded,  of  those  pre- 
judices which  benumb  them,  of  that 
ignorance  which  renders  them  credu- 
lous, of  those  vices  which  torment  them, 
of  those  governments  which  oppress 
them.  Let  us  then  conclude,  that  those 
divine  and  supernatural  ideas  with 
which  we  are  inspired  from  our  infan- 
cy, are  the  true  causes  of  our  habitual 
folly,  of  our  religious  quarrels,  of  our 
sacred  dissensions,  of  our  inhuman  per- 
secutions. Let  us  at  length  acknow- 
ledge, that  they  are  the  fatal  ideas 
which  have  obscured  morality,  corrupt- 


*  Non  enim  aliunde  venit  animo  robur,  quam 
a  bonis  artibus,  quam  a  contemplatione  naturae. 
Senec.  quasi.  Nalur.  lib,  vi.  chap,  xxxii. 


MEN'S  IDEAS   OF   THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


ed  politics,  retarded  the  progress  of  the 
sciences,  and  even  annihilated  happi- 
ness and  peace  in  the  heart  of  man. 
Let  it  then  be  no  longer  dissimulated, 
that  all  those  calamities,  for  which 
man  turns  his  eyes  towards  heaven, 
bathed  in  tears,  are  to  be  ascribed  to 
those  vain  phantoms  which  his  imagi- 
nation has  placed  there  ;  let  him  cease 
to  implore  them ;  let  him  seek  in  na- 
ture, and  in  his  own  energy,  those.re- 
sources  which  the  Gods,  who  are  deaf 
to  his  cries,  Avill  never  procure  for  him. 
Let  him  consult  the  desires  of  his  heart, 
and  he  will  find  that  which  he  owes  to 
himself,  and  that  which  he  owes  to 
others  ;  let  him  examine  the  essence 
and  the  aim  of  society,  and  he  will  no 
longer  be  a  slave ;  let  him  consult  ex- 
perience, he  will  find  truth,  and  he  will 
acknowledge  that  errour  can  never  pos- 
sibly render  him  happy.* 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Men  can  form  no  Conclusion  from  the  Ideas 
which  are  given  them  of  the  Divinity :  of  the 
want  of  Just  Interference,  in,  and  of  the  In- 
utility  of  ,  their  Conduct  on  his  Account, 

IF,  as  we  have  proved,  the  false  ideas 
which  men  have  in  all  times  formed  to 
themselves  of  the  Divinity,  far  from 
being  of  utility,  are  prejudicial  to  mo- 
rality, to  politics,  to  the  happiness  of 
society,  and  the  members  who  com- 
pose it ;  in  short,  to  the  progress  of  the 
human  understanding  ;  reason  and  our 
interest  ought  to  make  us  feel  the  ne- 
cessity of  banishing  from  our  mind 
these  vain  and  futile  opinions,  which 
will  never  do  more  than  confound  it, 
and  disturb  the  tranquillity  of  our 
hearts.  In  vain  should  we  flatter  our- 
selves with  arriving  at  the  rectification 

*  The  author  of  the  book  of  wisdom,  has 
said,  and  with  reason,  infandorum  enim  ido- 
lorum  cultura,  omnis  mali  est  causa  et  initium 
ct  finis.  SEE  CHAP.  xxiv.  VER.  27.  He  did 
not  see  that  his  God  was  an  idol  more  preju- 
dicial than  all  the  others.  At  all  events,  it 
appears  that  the  dangers  of  superstition  have 
been  felt  by  all  those  who  have  sincerely  taken 
to  heart  the  interest  of  the  human  species. 
This,  without  doubt,  is  the  reason  why  phi- 
losophy, which  is  the  fruit  of  reflection,  was 
almost  always  at  open  war  with  religion, 
which,  as  we  have  shown,  is  itself  the  fruit  of 
ignorance,  of  imposture,  of  enthusiasm,  and 
of  imagination. 


of  theological  notions ;  false  in  their 
principles,  they  are  not  susceptible  of 
reform.  Under  whatever  shape  an 
errour  presents  itself,  as  soon  as  men 
shall  attach  a  great  importance  to  it, 
it  will  end,  sooner  or  later,  by  produ- 
cing consequences  as  extensive  as  dan- 
gerous. Besides,  the  inutility  of  the 
researches  which  in  all  ages  have  been 
made  after  the  Divinity,  of  whom  the 
notions  have  never  had  any  other  effect 
than  to  obscure  him  more  and  more,  even 
for  those  themselves  who  have  most 
meditated  upon  him ;  this  inutility,  I  say, 
ought  it  not  to  convince  us,  that  these 
notions  are  not  within  the  reach  of  our 
capacity,  and  that  this  imaginary  being 
will  not  be  better  known  Sy  us,  or  by 
our  descendants,  than  it  has  been  by 
our  ancestors,  either  the  most  savage 
or  the  most  ignorant  ?  The  object 
which  men  in  all  ages  have  the  most 
considered,  reasoned  upon  the  most, 
and  written  upon  the  most,  remains, 
nevertheless,  the  least  known  ;  nay, 
time  has  only  rendered  it  more  impos- 
sible to  be  conceived.  If  God  be  such 
as  modern  theology  depicts  him,  he 
he  must  be  himself  a  God  who  is  ca- 
pable of  forming  an  idea  of  him.*  We 
know  little  of  man,  we  hardly  know 
ourselves  and  our  own  faculties,  and 
we  are  disposed  to  reason  upon  a  being 
inaccessible  to  all  our  senses  !  Let  us, 
then,  travel  in  peace  over  the  line  de- 
scribed for  us  by  nature,  without  di- 
verging from  it,  to  run  after  chimeras ; 
let  us  occupy  ourselves  with  our  true 
happiness ;  let  us  profit  by  the  benefits 
which  are  spread  before  us  ;  let  us  la- 
bour to  multiply  them,  by  diminishing 
the  number  of  our  errours  ;  let  us  sub- 
mit to  those  evils  which  we  cannot 
avoid  ;  and  do  not  let  us  augment  them 
by  filling  our  mind  with  prejudices  cal- 
culated to  lead  it  astray.  When  we 
shall  reflect  on  it,  every  thing  will 
clearly  prove  that  the  pretended  science 
of  God,  is,  in  truth,  nothing  but  a  pre- 
sumptuous ignorance,  masked  under 
pompous  and  unintelligible  words.  In 
short,  let  us  terminate  unfruitful  re- 
searches ;  let  us,  at  least,  acknowledge 


*  A  modern  poet  has  composed  a  piece  of 
poetry,  that  received  the  sanction  of  the 
French  academy,  upon  the  attributes  of  God, 
in  which  the  following  line  was  particularly 
applauded : — 
"  To  say  what  he  is,  'ticere  need  to  behimself" 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


287 


our  invincible  ignorance  ;  it  will  be 
more  advantageous  to  us  than  an  ar- 
rogant science,  which  hitherto  has  done 
nothing  more  than  sow  discord  on  the 
earth  and  affliction  in  our  hearts. 

In  supposing  a  sovereign  intelligence, 
who  governs  the  world  ;  in  supposing 
a  God,  who  exacts  from  his  creatures 
that  they  should  know  him,  that  they 
should  be  convinced  of  his  existence,  of 
liis  wisdom,  of  his  power,  and  who  is 
desirous  they  should  render  him  hom- 
age, it  must  be  allowed,  that  no  man 
on  earth  completely  fulfils  in  this  re- 
spect the  views  of  Providence.  Indeed, 
nothing  is  more  demonstrable  than  the 
impossibility  in  which  the  theologians 
find  themselves  to  form  to  their  mind 
any  idea  whatever  of  their  Divinity.* 
The  weakness  and  the  obscurity  of  the 
proofs  which  they  give  of  his  existence ; 
the  contradictions  into  which  they  fall ; 
the  sophisms  and  the  begging  of  the 
question  which  they  employ,  evidently 
prove  that  they  are  very  frequently  in 
the  greatest  incertitude  upon  the  nature 
of  the  being  with  whom  it  is  their  pro- 
fession to  occupy  themselves.  But, 
granting  that  they  have  a  knowledge 
of  him,  that  his  existence,  his  essence, 
and  his  attributes  were  so  fully  demon- 
strated to  them  as  not  to  leave  one 
doubt  in  their  mind,  do  the  rest  of  hu- 
man beings  enjoy  the  same  advantage? 
Ingenuously,  how  many  persons  will 
be  found  in  the  world  who  have  the 
leisure,  the  capacity,  and  the  penetra- 
tion necessary  to  understand  what  is 
meant  to  be  designated  under  the  name 
of  an  immaterial  being,  of  a  pure  spi- 
rit, who  moves  matter,  without  being 
matter  himself;  who  is  the  motive- 
power  of  nature,  without  being  con- 
tained in  nature,  and  without  being 
able  to  touch  it  ?  Are  there,  in  the  most 
religious  societies,  many  persons  who 
are  in  a  state  to  follow  their  spiritual 
guides  in  those  subtile  proofs  which 
they  give  them  of  the  existence  of  the 
God  which  they  make  them  adore? 


*  Procopius,  the  first  bishop  of  the  Goths, 
says,  in  a  very  solemn  manner  :  "  I  esteem  it 
a  very  foolish  temerity  to  be  disposed  to  pene- 
trate into  the  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  God." 
And  farther  on  he  acknowledges,  that  he  "  has 
nothing  more  to  say  of  him,  except  that  he 
is  perfectly  good.  He  who  knoweth  more, 
whether  he  be  ecclesiastic  or  layman, lias  only 
to  tell  it." 


Very  few  men,  without  doubt,  are 
capable  of  a  profound  and  connected 
meditation  ;  the  exercise  of  thought  is, 
for  the  greater  part,  a  labour  as  painful 
as  it  is  unusual.  The  people,  obliged  to 
toil  hard  in  order  to  subsist,  are  com- 
monly incapable  of  reflection.  Nobles, 
men  of  the  world,  women,  and  young 
people,  occupied  with  their  own  affairs, 
with,  the  care  of  gratifying  their  pas- 
sions, of  procuring  themselves  pleasure, 
think  as  rarely  as  the  uninformed. 
There  are  not,  perhaps,  two  men  in  a 
hundred  thousand,  who  have  seriously 
asked  themselves  the  question,  what  it 
is  they  understand  by  the  word  God  ? 
whilst  it  is  extremely  rare  to  find  per- 
sons to  whom  the  existence  of  God  is 
a  problem:  nevertheless,  as  we  have 
said,  conviction  supposes  that  evidence 
which  can  alone  procure  certitude  to 
the  mind.  Where,  then,  are  the  men 
who  are  convinced  of  the  existence  of 
their  God  ?  Who  are  those  in  whom 
we  shall  find  the  complete  certitude  of 
this  pretended  truth,  so  important  to 
all?  Who  are  the  persons  who  have 
given  themselves  an  accurate  account 
of  the  ideas  which  they  have  formed 
to  themselves  upon  the  Divinity,  upon 
his  attributes,  and  upon  his  essence  ? 
Alas!  I  see  in  the  whole  world  only 
some  speculators,  who,  by  dint  of  oc- 
cupying themselves  with  him,  have 
foolishly  believed  they  have  discovered 
something  in  the  confused  and  uncon- 
nected wanderings  of  their  imagina- 
tion ;  they  have  endeavoured  to  form 
a  whole,  which,  chimerical  as  it  is, 
they  have  accustomed  themselves  to 
consider  as  really  existing :  by  dint  of 
musing  upon  it,  they  have  sometimes 
persuaded  themselves  they  saw  it  dis- 
tinctly, and  they  have  succeeded  in 
making  others  believe  it,  who  have 
not  mused  upon  it  quite  s.o  much  as 
themselves. 

It  is  only  upon  hearsay  that  the  mass 
of  the  people  adore  the  God  of  their 
fathers  and  their  priests :  authority, 
confidence,  submission,  and  habit,  take 
place  of  conviction  and  proofs ;  they 
prostrate  themselves,  and  pray,  be- 
cause their  fathers  have  taught  them 
to  fall  down  and  worship  ;  but  where- 
fore have  these  fallen  upon  their  knees? 
It  is  because,  in  times  far-distant,  their 
legislators  and  their  guides  have  irn- 
posed  it  on  them  as  a  duty.  "  Adore 


288 


MEN'S    IDEAS  OF  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


and  believe,"  have  they  been  told, 
"  those  Gods,  Avhom  ye  cannot  com- 
prehend ;  yield  yourselves  in  this  re- 
spect to  our  profound  wisdom ;  we 
know  more  than  you  about  the  Di- 
vinity." But  wherefore  should  I  take 
this  matter  on  your  authority  ?  It  is 
because  God  wills  it  thus  ;  it  is  be- 
cause God  will  punish  you,  if  you  dare 
resist.  But  is  not  this  God  the  thing 
in  question  1  And  yet,  men  have  al- 
ways satisfied  themselves  with  this 
circle  of  errours  ;  the  idleness  of  their 
mind  made  them  find  it  more  easy  to 
yield  themselves  to  the  judgment  of 
others.  All  religious  notions  are  uni- 
formly founded  on  authority ;  all  the 
religions  of  the  world  forbid  examina- 
tion, and  are  not  disposed  that  men 
should  reason  upon  them ;  it  is  author- 
ity that  wills  they  should  believe  in 
God ;  this  God  is  himself  founded 
solely  upon  the  authority  of  some  men, 
who  pretend  to  have  a  knowledge  of 
him,  and  to  be  sent  to  announce  him 
to  the  earth.  A  God  made  by  men, 
has,  without  doubt,  occasion  for  men 
to  make  him  known  to  men.* 

Is  it  not,  then,  for  the  priests,  the 

*  Men  are  always  as  credulous  as  children 
upon  those  objects  which  relate  to  religion  ; 
as  they  comprehend  nothing  about  it,  and  are 
nevertheless  told  that  they  must  believe  it, 
they  imagine  they  run  no  risk  in  joining  senti- 
ments with  their  priests,  whom  they  suppose 
to  have  been  able  to  discover  that  which  they 
do  not  themselves  understand.  The  most 
rational  people  say  to  themselves,  What  sliall  I 
do  ?  what  interest  can  so  many  people  have  to 
deceive  ?  I  say  to  them,  they  do  deceive  you, 
either  because  they  are  themselves  deceived, 
or  because  they  have  a  great  interest  in  de- 
ceiving you. 

By  the  confession  of  the  theologians  them- 
selves, men  are  without  religion :  they  have 
only  superstition.  Superstition,  according  to 
them,  is  a  worship  of  the  Divinity,  badly  un- 
derstood and  irrational,  or  else,  a  worship 
rendered  to  a  false  Divinity.  But  where  are 
the  people  or  the  clergy,  who  will  allow  that 
their  Divinity  is  false,  and  their  worship  irra- 
tional 7  How  shall  it  be  decided,  who  is  right 
or  who  is  wrong?  It  is  evident,  that  in  mis 
affair,  all  men  are  equally  wrong.  Indeed, 
Buddaeus,  in  his  Treatise  on  Atheism,  tells  us  : 
"  In  order  that  a  religion  may  be  true,  not  only 
the  object  of  the  worship  must  be  true,  but  we 
must  also  have  a  just  idea  of  it.  He,  then, 
who  adores  God,  without  knowing  him,  adores 
him  in  a  perverse  and  corrupt  manner,  and  is 
guilty  of  superstition."  This  granted,  could 
it  not  be  demanded  of  all  the  theologians  in 
the  world,  if  they  can  boast  of  having  a  just 
idea,  or  a  rcal'knowledge  of  the  Divinity  ? 


inspired,  and  the  metaphysicians,  that 
the  conviction  of  the  existence  of  a 
God  would  be  reserved,  which  is  never- 
theless said  to  be  so  necessary  for  the 
Avhole  human  species  ?  But  shall  we 
find  any  harmony  among  the  theologi- 
cal notions  of  the  different  inspired 
men,  or  those  thinkers  who  are  scat- 
tered over  the  earth  ?  Those  them- 
selves, who  make  a  profession  of  ador- 
ing the  same  God,  are  they  in  accord 
with  respect  to  him  1  Are  they  con- 
tented with  the  proofs  which  their  col- 
leagues bring  of  his  existence  ?  Do 
they  unanimously  subscribe  to  the  ideas 
which  they  present  upon  his  nature, 
upon  his  conduct,  upon  the  manner  of 
understanding  his  various  oracles  ?  Is 
there  one  country  on  earth  where  the. 
science  of  God  is  really  perfectionated  ? 
Has  this  science  obtained  any  degree  of 
that  consistency  and  uniformity  which 
we  see  attached  to  human  knowledge, 
in  the  most  futile  arts,  or  in  those 
trades  which  are  most  despised  ?  The 
words  spirit,  immateriality,  creation, 
predestination,  grace  ;  this  multitude 
of  subtile  distinctions  with  which  the- 
ology is  throughout  filled  in  some  coun- 
tries ;  these  inventions,  so  ingeniously 
imagined  by  those  thinkers  who  have 
succeeded  each  other  during  so  many 
ages,  have  done  no  more,  alas  !  than 
perplex  things  ;  and  hitherto  the  sci- 
ence the  most  necessary  to  man,  has 
never  been  able  to  acquire  the  least 
degree  of  stability.  For  thousands  of 
years  past,  these  idle  dreamers  have 
been  relieving  each  other  to  meditate 
on  the  Divinity,  to  divine  his  conceal- 
ed ways,  to  invent  hypotheses  suita- 
ble to  develop  this  important  enigma. 
Their  slender  success  has  not  at  all 
discouraged  theological  vanity  ;  they 
have  always  spoken  of  God ;  they 
have  disputed ;  they  have  cut  each 
others'  throats  for  him  ;  and  this  sub- 
lime being  nevertheless  remains  the 
most  unknown  and  the  most  exam- 
ined.* 


*  If  things  were  coolly  examined,  it  would 
be  acknowledged  that  religion  is  by  no  means 
formed  for  the  greater  part  of  mankind,  who 
are  utterly  incapable  of  comprehending  any 
of  those  aerial  subtilties  upon  which  it  rests. 
Who  is  the  man  that  understands  any  thing 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  his  religion  ; 
of  the  spirituality  of  God  ;  of  the  {materiality 
of  the  soul ;  of  the  mysteries  of  which  he  is 
told  every  day  7  Are  there  many  people  who 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OP  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


299 


Men  would  have  been  too  happy,  if, 
confining  themselves  to  those  visible 
objects  which  interest  them,  they  had 
employed,  in  perfectionating  the  real 
sciences,  the  laws,  the  morals,  and  their 
education,  half  those  efforts  which  they 
have  wasted  in  their  researches  after 
the  Divinity.  They  had  been  also 
much  wiser,  and  more  fortunate,  if  they 
had  agreed  to  let  their  idle  and  un- 
employed guides  quarrel  between  them- 
selves, and  fathom  those  depths  calcu- 
lated to  stun  and  amaze  them  without 
intermeddling  with  their  irrational  dis- 
putes. But  at  is  the  essence  of  igno- 
rance to  attach  importance  to  every 
thing  it  does  not  understand.  Human 
vanity  makes  the  mind  bear  up  against 
difficulties.  The  more  an  object  eludes 
our  inquiry,  the  more  efforts  we  make 
to  compass  it,  because,  from  thence, 
our  pride  is  spurred  on,  our  curiosity 
is  irritated,  and  it  appears  interesting 
to  us.  On  the  other  hand,  the  longer 
and  more  laborious  our  researches  have 
been,  the  more  importance  we  attach 
to  our  real  or  pretended  discoveries, 
the  more  we  are  desirous  not  to  have 
lost  our  time;  besides,  we  are  always 
ready  to  defend  warmly  the  soundness 
of  our  judgment.  Do  not  let  us,  then, 
be  surprised  at  the  interest  which  ig- 
norant people  have  at  all  times  taken 
in  the  discoveries  of  their  priests  ;  nor 
at  the  obstinacy  which  these  have  al- 
ways manifested  in  their  disputes.  In- 
deed, in  combating  for  his  God,  each 
fought  only  for  the  interests  of  his  own 
vanity,  which,  of  all  human  passions, 
is  the  most  quickly  alarmed,  and  the 
most  suitable  to  produce  very  great 
follies. 

If,  throwing  aside  for  a  moment  the 
fatal  ideas  which  theology  gives  us  oi 
a  capricious  God,  whose  partial  and 
despotic  decrees  decide  the  condition 
of  human  beings,  we  would  only  fix 
our  eyes  upon  his  pretended  goodness, 
which  all  men,  even  when  trembling 
before  this  God,  agree  to  give  him  :  if 
we  suppose  him  to  have  in  view  what 

can  boast  of  perfectly  understanding  the  state 
of  the  question  in  those  theological  specula- 
tions, which  have  frequently  the  power  of 
disturbing  the  repose  of  mankind  ?  Never- 
theless, even  women  believe  themselves  ob- 
liged, to  take  a  part  in  the  quarrels  excited  by 
idle  speculators,  who  are  of  less  utility  to  so- 
ciety than  the  meanest  artisan. 
No.  X.— 37 


they  have  ascribed  to  him ;  to  hare 
laboured  only  to  his  own  glory  ;  to 
exact  the  homage  of  intelligent  beings; 
to  seek  in  all  his  works  only  the  well- 
being  of  the  human  species  :  how  can 
we  reconcile  all  this  with  the  igno- 
rance, truly  invincible,  in  which  this 
God,  so  glorious  and  so  good,  leaves 
the  greater  part  of  mankind  with  re- 
spect to  him  1  If  God  is  desirous  to  be 
known,  cherished,  and  thanked,  where- 
fore does  he  not  show  himself,  under 
favourable  traits,  to  all  those  intelligent 
beings,  by  whom  he  would  be  loved 
and  adored  ?  Wherefore  does  he  not 
manifest  himself  to  all  the  earth  in  an 
unequivocal  manner,  much  more  likely 
to  convince  us  than  those  particular 
revelations  which  appear  to  accuse  the 
Divinity  of  a  fatal  partiality  for  some 
of  his  creatures  ?  Has  the  omnipotent 
no  better  means  of  showing  himself  to 
men  than  those  ridiculous  metamor- 
phoses, those  pretended  incarnations, 
which  are  attested  by  writers  so  little 
in  harmony  with  each  other  ?  Instead 
of  such  a  number  of  miracles,  invented 
to  prove  the  divine  mission  of  so  many 
legislators  held  in  reverence  bv  the 
different  people  of  the  world,  could  not 
the  sovereign  of  minds  have  convinced 
at  once  the  human  mind  of  those  things 
with  which  he  was  desirous  it  should 
be  acquainted  ?  In  the  room  of  sus- 
pending a  sun  in  the  vaulted  firmament; 
in  lieu  of  diffusing  without  order  the 
stars  and  constellations,  which  fill  up 
the  regions  of  space,  would  it  not  have 
been  more  conformable  to  the  views  of 
a  God  so  jealous  of  his  glory,  and  so 
well-intentioned  towards  man,  to  have 
written,  in  a  manner  not  liable  to  dis- 
pute, his  name,  his  attributes,  his  ever- 
lasting will,  in  indelible  characters, 
and  equally  legible  to  all  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  earth?*  No  one,  then, 
could  have  doubted  the  existence  of  a 
God,  of  his  manifest  will,  of  his  visible 
intentions ;  no  mortal  would  have  dared 


*  I  foresee  that  the  theologians  will  oppose 
to  this  passage,  their  cceli  enarrant  gloriam 
Dei.  But  we  shall  reply  to  them,  that  the 
heavens  prove  nothing,  except  the  power  of 
nature,  the  immutability  of  its  laws,  the  power 
of  attraction,  of  repulsion,  of  gravitation,  the 
energy  of  matter ;  and  that  the  heavens  in  no 
way  announce  the  existence  of  an  immaterial 
cause,  of  a  God  who  is  in  contradiction  with 
himself,  and  who  can  never  do  that  which  he, 
wishes  to  do. 


290 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


to  place  himself  in  a  situation  to  attract 
his  wrath ;  in  short,  no  man  would  have 
had  the  audacity  to  have  imposed  on 
men  in  his  name,  or  to  have  interpreted 
his  Avill,  according  to  his  own  whim 
and  caprice. 

Theology  is  truly  the  vessel  of  the 
Danaides.  By  dint  of  contradictory 
qualities  and  bold  assertions,  it  has  so 
shackled  its  God,  as  to  make  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  act.  Indeed,  when 
even  we  should  suppose  the  existence 
of  the  theological  God,  and  the  reality 
of  those  attributes,  so  discordant,  which 
are  given  him,  we  can  conclude  nothing 
from  them  to  authorize  the  conduct  or 
sanction  the  worship  which  they  pre- 
scribed. If  God  be  infinitely  good, 
what  reason  have  we  to  fear  him  ?  If 
.he  be  infinitely  wise,  wherefore  disturb 
ourselves  with  our  condition  ?  If  he 
be  omniscient,  wherefore  inform  him  of 
our  wants,  and  fatigue  him  with  our 
prayers  ?  If  he  be  omnipresent,  where- 
fore erect  temples  to  him  ?  If  he  be 
Lord  of  all,  wherefore  make  sacrifices 
and  offerings  to  him  1  If  he  be  just, 
wherefore  believe  that  he  punishes 
those  creatures  whom  he  has  filled 
with  imbecility  ?  If  his  grace  works 
every  thing  in  man,  what  reason  has 
he  to  reward  him  ?  If  he  be  omnipo- 
tent, how  can  he  be  offended ;  and  how 
can  we  resist  him  1  If  he  be  rational, 
how  can  he  be  enraged  against  those 
blind  mortals  to  whom  he  has  left  the 
liberty  of  acting  irrationally  ?  If  he  be 
immutable,  by  what  right  shall  we  pre- 
tend to  make  him  change  his  decrees  ? 
If  he  be  inconceivable,  wherefore  should 
we  occupy  ourselves  with  him  ?  If  he 
has  spoken,  wherefore  is  the  universe 
not  convinced  ?  If  the  knowledge  of 
a  God  be  the  most  necessary  thing, 
wherefore  is  it  not  more  evident  and 
more  manifest  1 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  theologi- 
cal God  has  two  faces.  Nevertheless, 
if  he  be  wrathful,  jealous,  vindictive, 
and  wicked,  as  theology  supposes  him 
to  bf ,  without  being  disposed  to  allow 
it,  we  shall  no  longer  be  justified  in 
addressing  our  prayers  to  him,  nor  in 
sorrowfully  occupying  ourselves  with 
his  idea.  On  the  contrary,  for  our 
present  happiness,  and  for  our  quiet, 
we  ought  to  make  a  point  of  banishing 
him  from  our  thought ;  we  ought  to 
place  him  in  the  rank  of  those  neces- 


sary evils,  which  are  only  aggravated 
by  a  consideration  of  them.  Indeed, 
if  God  be  a  tyrant,  how  is  it  possible 
to  love  him?  Are  not  affection  and 
tenderness  sentiments  incompatible 
with  habitual  fear  1  How  could  we 
experience  love  for  a  master  who  gives 
to  his  slaves  the  liberty  of  offending 
him,  to  the  end  that  he  may  take  them 
on  their  weak  side,  and  punish  them 
with  the  utmost  barbarity  ?  If  to  this 
odious  character,  God  has  joined  om- 
nipotence ;  if  he  hold  in  his  hands  the 
unhappy  playthings  of  this  fantastic 
cruelty,  what  can  we  conclude  from 
it?  Nothing;  save  that,  whatever  ef- 
forts we  may  make  to  escape  our  des- 
tiny, we  shall  always  be  incapacitated 
to  withdraw  ourselves  from  it.  If  a 
God,  cruel  or  wicked  by  his  nature,  be 
armed  with  infinite  power,  and  take 
pleasure  in  rendering  us  eternally  mis- 
erable, nothing  will  divert  him  from 
it ;  his  wickedness  will  always  pursue 
its  course  ;  his  malice  would,  without 
doubt,  prevent  him  from  paying  any 
attention  to  our  cries  ;  nothing  would 
be  able  to  soften  his  obdurate  heart. 

Thus,  under  whatever  point  of  view 
we  contemplate  the  theological  God, 
we  have  no  worship  to  render  him,  no 
prayers  to  offer  up  to  him.  If  he  be 
perfectly  good,  intelligent,  equitable, 
and  wise,  what  have  we  to  ask  of  him  ? 
If  he  be  supremely  wicked,  if  he  be 
gratuitously  cruel,  as  all  men  believe, 
without  daring  to  avow  it,  our  evils 
are  without  remedy  ;  such  a  God  would 
deride  our  prayers,  and,  sooner  or  la- 
ter, we  should  be  obliged  to  submit  to 
the  rigour  of  the  lot  which  he  has  des- 
tined for  us. 

This  granted,  he  who  can  undeceive 
himself  with  regard  to  the  afflicting 
notions  of  the  Divinity,  has  this  ad- 
vantage over  the  credulous  and  trem- 
bling superstitious  mortal,  that  he  es- 
tablishes in  his  heart  a  momentary 
tranquillity,  which,  at  least,  renders 
him  happy  in  this  life.  If  the  study 
of  nature  has  banished  from  him  those 
chimeras  with  which  the  superstitious 
man  is  infested,  he  enjoys  a  security 
of  which  this  one  is  himself  deprived. 
In  consulting  nature,  his  fears  are  dis- 
sipated ;  his  opinions,  true  or  false,  be- 
come steady  ;  and  a  calm  succeeds  the 
storm  which  panic  terrours  and  waver- 
ing notions  excite  in  the  hearts  of  all 


MEN'S  IDEAS    OF  THE   DIVINITY,  &c. 


291 


men  who  occupy  themselves  with  the 
Divinity.  If  the  human  soul,  cheered 
by  philosophy,  had  the  boldness  to  con- 
sider things  coolly,  it  would  no  longer 
behold  the  universe  governed  by  an 
implacable  tyrant,  always  ready  to 
strike.  If  he  were  rational,  he  would 
see  that,  in  committing  evil,  he  did  not 
disturb  nature  ;  that  he  did  not  outrage 
his  author  ;  he  injures  himself  alone, 
or  he  injures  other  beings,  capable  of 
feeling  the  effects  of  his  conduct ;  from 
thence,  he  knows  the  line  of  his  duties ; 
he  prefers  virtue  to  vice,  and  for  his 
own  permanent  repose,  satisfaction, 
and  felicity  in  this  world,  he  feels  him- 
self interested  in  the  practice  of  vir- 
tue, in  rendering  it  habitual  to  his 
heart,  in  avoiding  vice,  in  detesting 
crime,  during  the  whole  time  of  his 
abode  amongst  intelligent  and  sensible 
beings,  from  whom  he  expects  his  hap- 
piness. By  attaching  himself  to  these 
rules,  he  will  live  contented  with  him- 
self, and  be  cherished  by  those  who 
shall  be  capable  of  experiencing  the 
influence  of  his  actions ;  he  will  ex- 
pect, without  inquietude,  the  term  when 
his  existence  shall  have  a  period ;  he 
will  have  no  reason  to  dread  the  exist- 
ence which  shall  follow  the  one  he  at 
present  enjoys ;  he  will  not  fear  to  be 
deceived  in  his  reasonings  ;  guided  by 
demonstration  and  honesty,  he  will 
perceive,  that,  if  contrary  to  his  expec- 
tation, there  did  exist  a  good  God,  he 
would  not  punish  him  for  his  involun- 
tary errours,  depending  upon  the  organ- 
ization he  should  have  received. 

Indeed,  if  there  did  exist  a  God  ;  if 
God  were  a  being  full  of  reason,  equity, 
and  goodness,  and  not  a  ferocious,  irra- 
tional, and  malicious  genius,  such  as 
religion  is  pleased  so  frequently  to  de- 
pict him  ;  what  could  a  virtuous  athe- 
ist have  to  apprehend,  who,  believing 
at  the  moment  of  his  death  he  falls 
asleep  for  ever,  should  find  himself  in 
the  presence  of  a  God  whom  he  should 
have  mistaken  and  neglected  during 
his  life  1 

"  O,  God !"  would  he  say,  "  father, 
who  hast  rendered  thyself  invisible  to 
thy  child  !  inconceivable  and  hidden 
author,  whom  I  could  not  discover ! 
pardon  me,  if  my  limited  understand- 
ing has  not  been  able  to  know  thee  in 
a  nature  where  every  thing  has  ap- 
peared to  me  to  be  necessary !  Excuse 


me,  if  my  sensible  heart  has  not  dis- 
cerned thine  august  traits  under  those 
of  the  austere  tyrant  whom  supersti- 
tious mortals  tremblingly  adore.  I  could 
only  see  a  phantom  in  that  assemblage 
of  irreconcilable  qualities,  with  which 
the  imagination  has  clothed  thee.  How 
should  my  coarse  eyes  perceive  thee 
in  a  nature  in  which  all  my  senses  have 
never  been  able  to  know  but  material 
beings  and  perishable  forms  ?  Could 
I,  by  the  aid  of  these  senses,  discover 
thy  spiritual  essence,  of  whichi  they 
could  not  furnish  any  proof?  How 
should  I  find  the  invariable  demonstra- 
tion of  thy  goodness  in  thy  works, 
which  I  saw  as  frequently  prejudicial 
as  favourable  to  the  beings  of  my  spe- 
cies ?  My  feeble  brain,  obliged  to 
form  its  judgments  after  its  own  capa- 
city, could  it  judge  of  thy  plan,  of  thy 
wisdom,  of  thine  intelligence,  whilst 
the  universe  presented  to  me  only  » 
continued  mixture  of  order  and  confu- 
sion, of  good  and  of  evil,  of  formation 
and  destruction  ?  Have  I  been  able  to 
render  homage  to  thy  justice,  whilst  I 
so  frequently  saw  crime  triumphant 
and  virtue  in  tears  ?  Could  I  acknow- 
ledge the  voice  of  a  being  filled  with 
wisdom,  in  those  ambiguous,  contra- 
dictory, and  puerile  oracles  which  im- 
postors published  in  thy  name,  in  the 
different  countries  of  the  earth  which 
I  have  quitted  1  If  I  have  refused  to 
believe  thine  existence,  it  is  because  I 
have  not  known,  either  what  thou 
couldst  be,  or  where  thou  couldst  be 
placed,  or  the  qualities  which  could  be 
assigned  to  thee.  My  ignorance  is  ex- 
cusable, because  it  was  invincible  :  my 
mind  could  not  bend  itself  under  the 
authority  of  some  men,  who  acknow- 
ledged themselves  as  little  enlightened 
upon  thine  essence  as  myself,  and 
who,  for  ever  disputing  amongst  them- 
selves, were  in  harmony  only  in  im- 
periously crying  out  to  me  to  sacri- 
fice to  them  that  reason  which  thou 
hast  given  men.  But,  O  God  !  if  thou 
cherishest  thy  creatures,  I  also  have 
cherished  them  like  thee ;  I  have  en- 
deavoured to  render  them  happy  in  the 
sphere  in  which  I  have  lived.  If  thou 
art  the  author  of  reason,  I  have  always 
listened  to  it,  and  followed  it ;  if  vir- 
tue please  thee,  my  heart  has  always 
honoured  it ;  I  have  never  outraged 
it ;  and,  when  my  powers  have  permit- 


292 


MEN'S   IDEAS   OF  THE   DIVINITY,  &c. 


ted  me,  I  have  myself  practised  it ;  I  was 
an  affectionate  husband,  a  tender  father, 
a  sincere  friend,  a  faithful  and  zealous 
citizen.  I  have  held  out  consolation 
to  the  afflicted :  if  the  foibles  of  my 
nature  have  been  injurious  to  myself, 
or  incommodious  to  others,  I  have  not, 
at  least,  made  the  unfortunate  groan 
under  the  weight  of  my  injustice  ;  I 
have  not  devoured  the  substance  of  the 
poor ;  I  have  not  seen  without  pity  the 
widow's  tears  ;  I  have  not  heard  with- 
out commiseration  the  cries  of  the  or- 
phan. If  thou  didst  render  man  so- 
ciable, if  thou  wast  disposed  that  so- 
ciety should  subsist  and  be  happy,  I 
have  been  the  enemy  of  all  those  who 
oppressed  him,  or  deceived  him,  in  or- 
der that  they  might  take  advantage  of 
his  misfortunes. 

"  If  I  have  thought  amiss  of  thee,  it 
is  because  my  understanding  could  not 
conceive  thee  ;  if  I  have  spoken  ill  of 
thee,  it  is  because  my  heart,  partaking 
too  much  of  human  nature,  revolted 
against  the  odious  portrait  which  was 
painted  of  thee.  My  wanderings  have 
been  the  effect  of  a  temperament  which 
thou  hast  given  me ;  of  the  circum- 
stances in  which,  without  my  consent, 
thou  hast  placed  me ;  of  those  ideas 
which,  in  despite  of  me,  have  entered 
into  my  mind.  If  thou  art  good  and 
just,  as  we  are  assured  thou  art,  thou 
canst  not  punish  me  for  the  wanderings 
of  my  imagination,  for  faults  caused  by 
my  passions,  which  are  the  necessary 
consequence  of  the  organization  which 
I  have  received  from  thee.  Thus,  I 
cannot  fear  thee,  I  cannot  dread  the 
condition  which  thou  prepares!  for  me. 
Thy  goodness  cannot  have  permitted 
that  I  should  incur  punishments  for  in- 
evitable errours.  Wherefore  didst  thou 
not  rather  prevent  my  being  born,  than 
have  called  me  into  the  rank  of  intelli- 
gent beings,  there  to  enjoy  the  fatal 
liberty  of  rendering  myself  unhappy  ? 
If  thou  punishest  me  with  severity,  and 
eternally,  for  having  listened  to  the 
reason  which  thou  gavest  me  ;  if  thou 
correctest  me  for  my  illusions ;  if  thou 
art  wroth,  because  my  feebleness  has 
made  me  fall  into  those  snares  which 
thou  hast  every  where  spread  for  me ; 
thou  wilt  be  the  most  cruel  and  the 
most  unjust  of  tyrants  ;  thou  wilt  not 
be  a  God.  but  a  malicious  demon,  to 
whom  I  shall  be  obliged  to  yield,  and 


satiate  the  barbarity ;  but  of  whom  I 
shall  at  least  congratulate  myself  to 
have  for  some  time  shook  off  the  in- 
supportable yoke." 

It  is  thus  that  a  disciple  of  nature 
would  speak,  who,  transported  all  at 
once  into  the  imaginary  regions,  should 
there  find  a  God,  of  whom  all  the  ideas 
were  in  direct  contradiction  to  those 
which  wisdom,  goodness,  and  justice 
furnish  us  here.  Indeed,  theology  ap- 
pears to  have  been  invented  only  to 
overturn  in  our  mind  all  natural  ideas. 
This  illusory  science  seems  to  be  bent 
on  making  its  God  a  being  the  most 
contradictory  to  human  reason.  It  is, 
nevertheless,  according  to  this  reason 
that  we  are  obliged  to  judge  in  this 
world  ;  if  in  the  other,  nothing  is  con- 
formable to  this,  nothing  is  of  more  in- 
utility  than  to  think  of  it,  or  reason 
upon  it.  Besides,  wherefore  leave 
it  to  the  judgment  of  men,  who  are 
themselves  only  enabled  to  judge  like 
us? 

However,  in  supposing  God  the  au- 
thor of  all,  nothing  is  more  ridiculous 
than  the  idea  of  pleasing  him,  or  irrita- 
ting him  by  our  actions,  our  thoughts, 
or  our  words  ;  nothing  is  more  incon- 
clusive than  to  imagine  that  man,  the 
work  of  his  hands,  can  have  merits  or 
demerits  with  respect  to  him.  It  is 
evident  that  he  cannot  injure  an  om- 
nipotent being,  supremely  happy  by 
his  essence.  It  is  evident  that  he  can- 
not displease  him,  who  has  made  him 
what  he  is:  his  passions,  his  desires, 
and  his  propensities,  are  the  necessary 
consequence  of  the  organization  which 
he  has  received  ;  the  motives  which 
determine  his  will  towards  good  or 
evil,  are  evidently  due  to  qualities  in- 
herent to  the  beings  which  God  places 
around  him.  If  it  be  an  intelligent  be- 
ing who  has  placed  us  in  the  circum- 
stances in  which  we  are,  who  has  giv- 
en the  properties  to  those  causes  which, 
in  acting  upon  us,  modify  our  will, 
how  can  we  offend  him  1  If  I  have  a 
tender,  sensible,  and  compassionate 
soul,  it  is  because  I  have  received  from 
God  organs  easily  moved,  from  whence 
results  a  lively  imagination,  which  edu- 
cation has  cultivated.  If  I  am  insen- 
sible and  cruel,  it  is  because  he  has 
given  me  only  refractory  organ  sr  from 
whence  results  an  imagination  of  little 
feeling,  and  a  heart  difficult  to  be 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF   THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


293 


touched.  If  I  profess  a  religion,  it  is 
because  I  have  received  it  from  parents, 
from  whom  it  did  not  depend  upon  me 
to  receive  my  birth,  who  professed  it 
before  me,  whose  authority,  example, 
and  instructions,  have  obliged  my  mind 
to  conform  itself  to  theirs.  If  I  am 
incredulous,  it  is  because,  little  sus- 
ceptible of  fear  or  enthusiasm  for  un- 
known objects,  my  circumstances  have 
so  ordered  it,  that  I  should  undeceive 
myself  of  the  chimeras  with  which  I 
had  occupied  myself  in  my  infancy. 

It  is,  then,  for  want  of  reflecting  on 
his  principles,  that  the  theologian  tells 
us  that  man  can  please  or  displease 
the  powerful  God  who  has  formed  him. 
Those  who  believe  they  have  merited 
well,  or  deserved  punishment  of  their 
God,  imagine  that  this  being  will  be 
obliged  to  them  for  the  organization 
which  he  has  himself  given  them,  and 
will  punish  them  for  that  which  he 
has  refused  them.  In  consequence  of 
this  idea,  so  extravagant,  the  affection- 
ate and  tender  devotee  flatters  himself 
he  shall  be  recompensed  for  the  warmth 
of  his  imagination.  The  zealous  dev- 
otee doubts  not  that  his  God  will  some 
day  reward  him  for  the  acrimony  of 
his  bile  or  the  heat  of  his  blood.  Pen- 
itent, frantic,  and  atrabilious  beings, 
imagine  that  God  will  keep  a  register 
of  those  follies  which  their  vicious 
organization  or  their  fanaticism  make 
them  commit ;  and,  above  all,  will  be 
extremely  contented  with  their  melan- 
choly humour,  the  gravity  of  their 
countenance,  and  their  antipathy  to 
pleasure.  Devotees,  zealous,  obstinate, 
and  quarrelsome  beings,  cannot  per- 
suade themselves  that  their  God,  which 
they  always  form  after  their  own  mod- 
el, can  be  favourable  to  those  who  are 
more  phlegmatic,  who  have  less  bile 
in  their  composition,  or  have  a  cooler 
blood  circulating  through  their  veins. 
Each  mortal  believes  his  own  organi- 
zation is  the  best,  and  the  most  con- 
formable to  that  of  his  God. 

What  strange  ideas  must  these  blind 
mortals  have  of  their  Divinity,  who 
imagine  that  the  absolute  master  of  all 
can  be  offended  with  the  motions  which 
take  place  in  their  body  or  in  their 
mind !  What  contradiction,  to  think 
that  his  unalterable  happiness  can  he 
disturbed,  or  his  plan  deranged,  by  the 
transitory  shocks  which  the  impercep- 


tible fibres  of  the  brain  of  one  of  his 
creatures  experience.  Theology  gives 
us  very  ignoble  ideas  of  a  God,  of 
whom,  however,  it  is  unceasingly  ex- 
alting the  power,  the  greatness,  and 
the  goodness. 

Without  a  very  marked  derangement 
of  our  organs,  our  sentiments  hardly 
ever  vary  upon  those  objects  which  our 
senses,  experience,  and  reason  have 
clearly  demonstrated  to  us.  In  what- 
ever circumstances  we  are  found,  we 
have  no  doubt  either  upon  the  white- 
ness of  snow,  the  light  of  day,  or  the 
utility  of  virtue.  It  is  not  so  with  those 
objects  which  depend  solely  on  our  im- 
agination, and  which  are  not  proved  to 
us  by  the  constant  evidence  of  our 
senses ;  we  judge  of  them  variously, 
according  to  the  disposition  in  which 
we  find  ourselves.  These  dispositions 
vary  by  reason  of  the  involutary  im- 
pressions which  our  organs  receive  at 
each  instant  on  the  part  of  an  infinity 
of  causes,  either  exterior  to  us,  or  con- 
tained within  our  own  machine.  These 
organs  are,  without  our  knowledge, 
perpetually  modified,  relaxed,  or  bent, 
by  the  greater  or  less  weight  or  elasti- 
city in  the  air;  by  heat  or  cold, by  dry- 
ness  or  humidity,  by  health  or  sickness, 
by  the  heat  of  the  blood,  by  the  abun- 
dance of  the  bile,  by  the  state  of  the 
nervous  system,  &c.  These  different 
causes  necessarily  have  an  influence 
on  the  momentary  ideas,  thoughts,  and 
opinions  of  man.  He  is,  consequent- 
ly, obliged  to  see  variously  those  ob- 
jects which  his  imagination  presents 
to  him,  without  being  able  to  be  cor- 
rected by  experience  and  memory. 
Here  is  the  reason  why  man  is  obliged 
continually  to  see  his  God  and  his  re- 
ligious chimeras  under  different  aspects. 
In  a  moment  when  his  fibres  find  them- 
selves disposed  to  tremble,  he  will  be 
cowardly  and  pusillanimous,  he  will 
think  of  this  God  only  with  trembling ;  in 
a  moment  when  these  same  fibres  shall 
be  more  firm,  he  will  contemplate  this 
same  God  with  more  coolness.  The 
theologian,  or  the  priest,  will  call  his 
pusillanimity,  inward  feeling,  -warn- 
ing from  Heaven,  secret  inspiration; 
but  he  who  knows  man,  will  say  that 
this  is  nothing  but  a  mechanical  mo- 
tion, produced  by  a  physical  or  natural 
cause.  Indeed,  it  is  by  a  pure  physi- 
cal mechanism  that  we  can  explain  all 


294 


MEN'S  IDEAS   OF  THE   DIVINITY,  &c. 


the  revolutions  which  take  place  fre-  | 
quently  from  one  moment  to  another ' 
in  the  systems,  in  all  the  opinions,  and  ; 
in  all  the  judgments  of  men :  in  con-  j 
sequence,  we  see  them  sometimes  rea- 
soning justly,  and  sometimes  irration- 
ally. 

Here  is  the  mode  by  which,  with- 
out recurring  to  grace,  to  inspirations, 
to  visions,  and  to  supernatural  move- 
ments, we  can  render  ourselves  an  ac- 
count of  that  uncertain  and  wavering 
state  into  which  we  sometimes  see 
persons  fall,  otherwise  extremely  en- 
lightened, when  there  is  a  question  of 
religion.  Frequently,  in  despite  of  all 
reasoning,  momentary  dispositions  re- 
conduct  them  to  the  prejudices  of  their 
infancy,  from  which  on  other  occasions 
they  appear  to  be  completely  unde- 
ceived. These  changes  are  very  mark- 
ed, especially  in  infirmities  and  sick- 
ness, and  at  the  approach  of  death. 
The  barometer  of  the  understanding 
is  then  frequently  obliged  to  fall. 
Those  chimeras  which  they  despised, 
or  which,  in  a  state  of  health,  they  set 
down  at  their  true  value,  are  then  re- 
alized. They  tremble,  because  the 
machine  is  enfeebled  ;  they  are  irra- 
tional, because  the  brain  is  incapable 
of  exactly  fulfilling  its  functions.  It  is 
evident  that  these  are  the  true  chances 
which  the  priests  have  the  knavery  to 
make  use  of  against  incredulity,  and 
from  which  they  draw  proofs  of  the  re- 
ality of  their  sublime  opinions.  Those 
conversions,  or  those  changes,  which 
take  place  in  the  ideas  of  men,  have 
always  their  origin  in  some  physical 
derangement  of  their  machine,  brought ! 
on  by  chagrin,  or  by  some  natural  and 
known  cause. 

Subjected  to  the  continual  influence 
of  physical  causes,  our  systems,  then, 
always  follow  the  variations  of  our 
body  ;  we  reason  well  when  our  body 
is  healthy  and  well-constituted ;  we 
reason  badly  when  this  body  is  de- 
ranged ;  from  thence  our  ideas  discon- 
nect themselves,  we  are  no  longer  ca- 
pable of  associating  them  with  preci- 
sion, of  finding  our  principles,  to  draw 
from  them  just  inferences  ;  the  brain  > 
is  shaken,  and  we  no  longer  see  any  : 
thing  under  its  true  point  of  view. 
Such  a  man  does  not  see  his  God,  in 
frosty  weather,  under  the  same  traits 
as  in  cloudy  and  rainy  weather :  he 


does  not  contemplate  him  in  the  same 
manner  in  sorrow  as  in  gayety,  when 
in  company  as  when  alone.  Good 
sense  suggests  to  us,  that  it  is  when  the 
body  is  sound,  and  the  mind  undis- 
turbed by  any  mist,  that  we  can  reason 
with  precision ;  this  state  can  furnish 
us  with  a  general  standard  suitable  to 
regulate  our  judgments,  and  even  rec- 
tify our  ideas,  when  unexpected  causes 
shall  make  them  waver. 

If  the  opinions  of  the  same  individ- 
ual upon  his  God  are  wavering  and 
subject  to  vary,  how  many  changes 
must  they  experience  in  the  various  be- 
ings who  compose  the  human  race  ? 
If  there  do  not,  perhaps,  exist  two  men 
who  see  a  physical  object  exactly  un- 
der the  same  point  of  view,  what  much 
g-reater  variety  must  they  not  have  in 
their  modes  of  contemplating  those 
things  which  have  existence  only  in 
their  imagination?  What  an  infinity 
of  combinations  of  ideas  must  not 
minds,  essentially  different,  make  to 
themselves,  to  compose  an  ideal  being, 
which  each  moment  of  life  must  pre- 
sent under  a  different  form  1  It  would 
then  be  an  irrational  enterprise  to  at- 
tempt to  prescribe  to  men  what  they 
ought  to  think  of  religion  and  of  God, 
which  are  entirely  under  the  cogni- 
zance of  the  imagination,  and  for  which, 
as  we  have  very  frequently  repeated, 
mortals  will  never  have  any  common 
standard.  To  combat  the  religious 
opinions  of  men,  is  to  combat  with 
their  imagination,  with  their  organiza- 
tion, and  with  their  habits,  which  suf- 
fice to  identify  with  their  existence  the 
most  absurd  and  the  least  founded  ideas. 
The  more  imagination  men  have,  the 
greater  enthusiasts  will  they  be  in  mat- 
ters of  religion,  and  reason  will  be  less 
capable  of  undeceiving  them  of  their 
chimeras  :  these  chimeras  will  become 
a  food  necessary  for  their  ardent  im- 
agination. In  fine,  to  combat  the  reli- 
gious notions  of  men,  is  to  combat  the 
passion  which  they  have  for  the  mar- 
vellous. In  despite  of  reason,  those 
persons  who  have  a  lively  imagina- 
tion, are  perpetually  reconducted  to 
those  chimeras  which  habit  render  dear 
to  them,  even  when  they  are  trouble- 
some and  fatal.  Thus,  a  tender  soul 
has  occasion  for  a  God  that  loves  him  ; 
the  happy  enthusiast  needs  a  God  who 
rewards  him :  the  unfortunate  enthu- 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


295 


siast  wants  a  God,  who  takes  part  in 
his  sorrows  ;  the  melancholy  devotee 
has  occasion  for  a  God  who  chagrins 
him,  and  who  maintains  him  in  that 
trouble  which  has  become  necessary 
to  his  diseased  organization ;  the  fran- 
tic penitent  needs  a  cruel  God,  who 
imposes  on  him  an  obligation  to  be  in- 
human towards  himself;  whilst  the 
furious  fanatic  would  believe  himself 
unhappy  if  he  were  deprived  of  a  God 
who  orders  him  to  make  others  experi- 
ence the  effects  of  his  inflamed  humours 
and  of  his  unruly  passions. 

He  is,  without  question,  a  less  dan- 
gerous enthusiast  who  feeds  himself 
with  agreeable  illusions,  than  he  whose 
soul  is  tormented  by  odious  spectres. 
If  a  virtuous  and  tender  mind  does  not 
commit  ravages  in  society,  a  mind  agi- 
tated by  incommodious  passions,  can- 
not fail  to  become,  sooner  or  later, 
troublesome  to  his  fellow-creatures. 
The  God  of  a  Socrates,  or  of  a  Fene- 
lon,  may  be  suitable  to  minds  as  gentle 
as  theirs  ;  but  he  cannot  be  the  God 
of  a  whole  nation,  in  which  it  will  al- 
ways be  extremely  rare  to  find  men  of 
their  temper.  The  Divinity,  as  we 
have  frequently  said,  will  always  be 
for  the  greater  portion  of  mortals  a 
frightful  chimera,  calculated  to  disturb 
their  brain,  to  set  their  passions  afloat, 
and  to  render  them  injurious  to  their 
associates.  If  honest  men  only  see 
their  God  as  filled  with  goodness  ;  vi- 
cious, restless,  inflexible,  and  wicked 
men,  will  give  to  their  God  their  own 
character,  and  will  authorize  them- 
selves, from  this  example,  to  give  a 
free  course  to  their  own  passions.  Each 
man  can  see  his  chimera  only  with  his 
own  eyes  ;  and  the  number  of  those 
who  will  paint  the  Divinity  as  hideous, 
afflicting,  and  cruel,  will  be  always 
greater  and  more  to  be  feared,  than 
those  who  describe  him  under  sedu- 
cing colours  ;  for  one  mortal  whom  this 
chimera  can  render  happy,  there  will 
be  thousands  which  it  will  make  mis- 
erable ;  it  will  be,  sooner  or  later,  an 
inexhaustible  source  of  divisions,  of 
extravagancies,  and  of  madness ;  it 
will  disturb  the  mind  of  the  ignorant, 
over  whom  impostors  and  fanatics  will 
always  have  an  influence ;  it  will 
frighten  the  cowardly  and  the  pusil- 
lanimous, whom  their  weakness  will 
incline  to  perfidy  and  cruelty  ;  it  will 


make  the  most  honest  tremble,  who, 
even  while  practising  virtue,  will  fear 
the  displeasure  of  a  fantastical  and  ca- 
pricious God  ;  it  will  not  stop  the  pro- 
gress of  the  wicked,  who  will  put  it 
aside,  in  order  to  deliver  themselves 
up  to  crime  ;  or  who  will  even  avail 
themselves  of  this  divine  chimera  to 
justify  their  transgressions.  In  short, 
in  the  hands  of  tyrants,  this  God,  who 
is  himself  a  tyrant,  will  only  serve  to 
crush  the  liberty  of  the  people,  and 
violate,  with  impunity,  the  rights  of 
equity.  In  the  hands  of  priests,  this 
God  will  be  a  talisman,  suitable  to  in- 
toxicate, blind,  and  subjugate  equally 
the  sovereign  and  the  subject;  in  fine, 
in  the  hands  of  the  people,  this  idol 
will  always  be  a  two-edged  weapon, 
with  which  they  will  give  themselves 
the  most  mortal  wounds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  theological 
God,  being,  as  we  have  seen,  only  a 
heap  of  contradictions ;  being  repre- 
sented, in  despite  of  his  immutability, 
sometimes  as  goodness  itself,  some- 
times as  the  most  cruel  and  the  most 
unjust  of  beings ;  being  besides  con- 
templated by  men,  whose  machines 
experience  continual  variations  ;  this 
God,  I  say,  cannot  at  all  times  appear 
the  same  to  those  who  occupy  them- 
selves with  him.  Those  who  form  the 
most  favourable  ideas  of  him  are  fre- 
quently obliged  to  acknowledge  that 
the  portrait,  which  they  paint  to  them- 
selves, is  not  always  conformable  to 
the  original.  The  most  fervent  de- 
votees, the  most  prepossessed  enthusi- 
asts cannot  prevent  themselves  from 
seeing  the  traits'  of  their  Divinity 
change ;  and  if  they  were  capable  of 
reasoning,  they  would  feel  the  want  of 
just  inference  in  the  conduct  which 
they  unceasingly  hold  with  respect 
to  him.  Indeed,  would  they  not  see, 
that  his  conduct  appeared  to  contra- 
dict, every  moment,  the  marvellous 
perfections  which  they  assign  to  their 
God  1  To  pray  to  the  Divinity,  is  it 
not  doubting  of  his  wisdom,  of  his  be- 
nevolence, of  his  providence,  of  his 
omniscience,  and  of  his  immutability  1 
Is  it  not  to  accuse  him  of  neglecting 
his  creatures,  and  to  ask  him  to  alter 
the  eternal  decree  of  his  justice,  to 
change  those  invariable  laws  which 
he  has  himself  determined  ?  To  pray 
to  God,  is  it  not  to  say  to  him :  "  O,  my 


296 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF   THE  DIVINITY,   &c. 


God,  I  acknowledge  your  wisdom,  your 
omniscience,  and  your  infinite  good- 
ness ;  nevertheless,  you  forget  me ; 
you  lose  sight  of  your  creature  ;  you 
are  ignorant,  or  you  feign  ignorance 
of  that  which  he  wants ;  do  you  not 
see  that  I  suffer  from  the  marvellous 
arrangement  which  your  wise  laws 
have  made  in  the  universe  ?  Nature, 
against  your  commands,  actually  ren- 
ders mine  existence  painful  ;  change, 
then,  I  pray  you,  the  essence  which 
your  will  has  given  to  all  beings.  See 
that  the  elements,  at  this  moment,  lose 
in  my  favour  their  distinguishing  pro- 
perties ;  order  it  so,  that  heavy  bodies 
shall  not  fall,  that  fire  shall  not  burn, 
that  the  brittle  frame  which  I  have  re- 
ceived from  you  shall  not  suffer  those 
shocks  which  it  experiences  every  in- 
stant. Rectify,  for  my  happiness,  the 
plan  which  your  infinite  prudence  has 
marked  out  from  all  eternity."  Such 
are  very  nearly  the  prayers  which  men 
form  ;  such  are  the  ridiculous  demands 
which  they  every  moment  make  to  the 
Divinity,  of  whom  they  extol  the  wis- 
dom, the  intelligence,  the  providence, 
and  the  equity,  whilst  they  are  hardly 
ever  contented  with  the  effects  of  his 
divine  perfections. 

Men  are  not  more  consistent  in  the 
thanksgivings  which  they  believe  them- 
selves obliged  to  offer  him.  Is  it  not  just, 
say  they,  to  thank  the  Divinity  for  his 
kindness  ?  Would  it  not  be  the  height 
of  ingratitude  to  refuse  our  homage  to 
the  author  of  our  existence,  and  of 
every  thing  that  contributes  to  render 
it  agreeable  1  But  I  shall  say  to  them, 
then  your  God  acts  from  interest ;  sim- 
ilar to  men,  who,  even  when  they  are 
the  most  disinterested,  expect  at  least 
that  we  should  give  them  proofs  of  the 
impression  which  their  kindness  makes 
upon  us.  Your  God,  so  powerful,  and 
so  great,  has  he  occasion  that  you 
should  prove  to  him  the  sentiments 
of  your  acknowledgments  ?  Besides, 
upon  what  do  you  found  this  grati- 
tude ?  Does  he  distribute  his  benefits 
equally  to  all  men  1  Are  the  greater 
number  among  them  contented  with 
their  condition  ?  you  yourself,  are  you 
always  satisfied  with  your  existence  ? 
It  will  be  answered  me,  without  doubt, 
that  this  existence  alone  is  the  greatest 
of  all  benefits.  But  how  can  we  look 
upon  it  as  a  signal  advantage  1  This 


existence,  is  it  not  in  the  necessary 
order  of  things  ?  Has  it  not  neces- 
sarily entered  into  the  unknown  plan 
of  your  God  ?  Does  the  stone  owe 
any  thing  to  the  architect  for  having 
judged  it  necessary  to  his  building? 
Do  you  know  better  than  this  stone 
the  concealed  views  of  your  God?  If 
you  are  a  thinking  and  sensible  being, 
do  you  not  find  that  this  marvellous 
plan  incommodes  you  every  instant ; 
do  not  even  your  prayers  to  the  archi- 
tect of  the  world  prove  that  you  are 
discontented  ?  You  were  born  with- 
out your  consent ;  your  existence  is 
precarious ;  you  suffer  against  your  will ; 
your  pleasures  and  your  sorrows  do  not 
depend  upon  you  ;  you  are  not  master 
of  any  thing ;  you  have  not  the  smallest 
conception  of  the  plan  formed  by  the 
architect  of  the  universe  whom  you 
never  cease  to  admire,  and  in  which, 
without  your  consent,  you  find  your- 
self placed ;  you  are  the  continual  sport 
of  the  necessity  which  you  deify :  after 
having  called  you  into  life,  your  God 
obliges  you  to  quit  it.  Where,  then, 
are  those  great  obligations  which  you 
believe  you  owe  to  Providence  ?  This 
same  God,  who  gives  you  the  breath 
of  life,  who  furnishes  you  your  wants, 
who  conserves  you,  does  he  not  in  a 
moment  ravish  from  you  these  pre- 
tended advantages  ?  If  you  consider 
existence  as  the  greatest  of  all  benefits, 
is  not  the  loss  of  this  existence,  ac- 
cording to  yourself,  the  greatest  of  all 
evils?  If  death  and  sorrow  are  formi- 
dable evils,  do  not  this  grief  and  death 
efface  the  benefit  of  existence,  and  the 
pleasure  that  may  sometimes  accom- 
pany it  ?  If  your  birth  and  your  fune- 
ral, your  enjoyments  and  your  sorrows, 
have  equally  entered  into  the  views  of 
his  providence,  I  see  nothing  that  can 
authorize  you  to  thank  him.  What 
can  be  the  obligations  which  you  have 
to  a  master  who,  in  despite  of  you, 
obliges  you  to  enter  into  this  world, 
there  to  play  a  dangerous  and  unequal 
game,  by  which  you  may  gain  or  lose 
an  eternal  happiness  ? 

They  speak  to  us,  indeed,  of  another 
life,  where  we  are  assured  that  man 
will  be  completely  happy.  But  in  sup- 
posing for  a  moment  the  existence  of 
this  other  life,  which  has  as  little  foun- 
dation as  that  of  the  being  from  whom 
it  is  expected,  it  were  necessary,  at 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF   THE  DIVINITY,   &c. 


297 


least,  for  man  to  suspend  his  acknow- 
ledgment until  he  enter  into  this  other 
life :  in  the  life  of  which  we  have  a 
knowledge,  men  are  much  more  fre- 
quently discontented  than  fortunate  ; 
if  God,  in  the  world  which  we  occupy, 
has  not  been  able  or  willing  to  permit 
that  his  beloved  creatures  might  be 
perfectly  happy,  how  shall  we  assure 
ourselves  that  he  will  have  the  power 
or  the  disposition  to  render  them  in 
the  end  more  happy  than  they  are 
now  ?  They  will  then  cite  to  us  the 
revelations,  the  formal  promises  of  the 
Divinity,  who  engages  to  compensate 
his  favourites  for  the  sorrows  of  the 
present  life.  Let  us,  for  an  instant, 
admit  the  authenticity  of  these  prom- 
ises ;  do  not  these  revelations  them- 
selves teach  us  that  the  divine  good- 
ness reserves  eternal  punishments  for 
the  greater  number  of  men  1  If  these 
menaces  be  true,  do  mortals,  then,  owe 
acknowledgments  to  a  God  who,  with- 
out consulting  them,  only  gives  them 
their  existence,  that  they  may,  with 
the  assistance  of  their  pretended  liberty, 
run  the  risk  of  rendering  themselves 
eternally  miserable  1  Would  it  not 
have  been  more  beneficial  for  them  not 
to  have  existed,  or  at  least  to  have  ex- 
isted only  like  stones  or  brutes,  from 
whom  it  is  supposed  God  exacts  no- 
thing, than  to  enjoy  those  extolled 
faculties — the  privilege  of  having  me- 
rits or  demerits — which  may  conduct 
intelligent  beings  to  the  most  frightful 
misfortunes  ?  In  paying  attention  to 
the  small  number  of  the  elect,  and  to 
the  great  number  of  the  condemned, 
where  is  the  man  of  feeling  who,  if 
he  had  been  the  master,  had  consented 
to  run  the  risk  of  eternal  damnation  ? 

Thus,  under  whatever  point  of  view 
we  contemplate  the  theological  phan- 
tom, men,  if  they  were  consistent,  even 
in  their  errours,  neither  owe  him  pray- 
ers, nor  homage,  nor  worship,  nor 
thanksgivings.  But  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion, mortals  never  reason ;  they  only 
follow  the  impulse  of  their  fears,  of 
their  imagination,  of  their  tempera- 
ment, of  their  peculiar  passions,  or 
those  guides  who  have  acquired  the 
right  of  controuling  their  understand- 
ings. Fear  has  made  Gods  ;  terrour 
unceasingly  accompanies  them;  it  is 
impossible  to  reason  when  we  tremble. 
Thus  men  will  never  reason  when 

No.  X.— 3S 


there  shall  be  a  question  of  those  ob- 
jects of  which  the  vague  idea  will  ever 
be  associated  to  that  of  terrour.  If  a 
mild  and  honest  enthusiast  sees  his 
God  only  as  a  beneficent  father,  the 
greater  portion  of  mortals  will  only 
view  him  as  a  formidable  sultan,  a  dis- 
agreeable tyrant,  and  a  cruel  and  per- 
verse genius.  Thus,  this  God  will  al- 
ways be  for  the  human  race  a  danger- 
ous leaven,  suitable  to  imbitter  it,  and 
put  it  into  a  fatal  fermentation.  If,  to 
the  peaceable,  humane,  and  moderate 
devotee,  could  be  left  the  good  God 
which  he  has  formed  to  himself  after 
his  own  heart,  the  interest  of  the  hu- 
man race  demands  that  an  idol  should 
be  overthrown  to  which  fear  has  given 
birth,  which  is  nourished  by  melan- 
choly, of  whom  the  idea  and  the  name 
are  only  calculated  to  fill  the  universe 
with  carnage  and  with  follies. 

We  do  not,  however,  flatter  ourselves 
that  reason  will  be  at  all  once  capable 
of  delivering  the  human  race  from  those 
errours  with  Avhich  so  many  causes 
united  have  conspired  to  poison  it. 
The  vainest  of  all  projects  would  be 
the  expectation  of  curing  in  an  instant 
those  epidemical  and  hereditary  errours, 
rooted  during  so  many  ages,  and  con- 
tinually fed  and  corroborated  by  the 
ignorance,  the  passions,  the  customs, 
the  interests,  the  fears,  and  the  calami- 
ties of  nations,  always  regenerating. 
The  ancient  revolutions  of  the  earth 
have  brought  forth  its  first  Gods,  new 
revolutions  would  produce  new  ones, 
if  the  old  ones  should  chance  to  be  for- 
gotten. Ignorant,  miserable,  and  trem- 
bling beings,  will  always  form  to  them- 
selves Gods,  or  else  their  credulity  will 
make  them  receive  those  which  im- 
posture or  fanaticism  shall  announce 
to  them. 

Then  do  not  let  us  propose  more  to 
ourselves  than  to  hold  reason  to  those 
who  may  be  able  to  understand  it ;  to 
present  truth  to  those  who  can  sustain 
its  lustre  ;  to  undeceive  those  who  shall 
not  be  inclined  to  oppose  obstacles  to 
demonstration,  and  who  will  not  obsti- 
nately persist  in  errour.  Let  us  infuse 
courage  into  those  who  have  not  the 
power  to  break  with  their  illusions. 
Let  us  cheer  the  honest  man  who  is 
much  more  alarmed  by  his  fears  than 
the  wicked,  who,  in  despite  of  his  opin- 
ions, always  follows  his  passions  ;  let 


298 


MEN'S  IDEAS  OF  THE  DIVINITY,  &c. 


us  console  the  unfortunate,  who  groans 
under  a  load  of  prejudices,  which  he 
has  not  examined  ;  let  us  dissipate  the 
incertitude  of  him  who  doubts,  am 
who,  ingenuously  seeking  after  truth 
finds  in  philosophy  itself  only  waver- 
ing opinions,  little  calculated  to  fix  his 
mind.  Let  us  banish  from  the  man  o 
genius  the  chimera  which  makes  him 
waste  his  time  :  let  us  wrest  his  gloomy 
phantom  from  the  intimidated  mortal 
who,  duped  by  his  own  fears,  become 
useless  to  society  :  let  us  remove  from 
the  atrabilarious  being  a  God  who  af- 
flicts him,  who  exasperates  him,  and 
who  does  nothing  more  than  kindle  his 
anger :  let  us  tear  from  the  fanatic  the 
God  who  arms  him  with  poniards ;  let 
us  pluck  from  impostors  and  from  ty- 
rants a  God  who  serves  them  to  ter- 
rify, enslave,  and  despoil,  the  human 
species.  In  removing  from  honest  men 
their  formidable  notions,  let  us  not  en- 
courage the  wicked,  the  enemies  ol 
society  ;  let  us  deprive  them  of  those 
resources  upon  which  they  reckon  to 
expiate  their  transgressions ;  to  uncer- 
tain and  distant  terrours,  which  cannot 
stop  their  excesses,  let  us  substitute 
those  which  are  real  and  present ;  let 
them  blush  at  seeing  themselves  what 
they  are  ;  let  them  tremble  at  finding 
their  conspiracies  discovered ;  let  them 
have  the  fear  of  one  day  seeing  those 
mortals  whom  they  abuse,  cured  of  the 
errours  of  which  they  avail  themselves 
to  enslave  them. 

If  we  cannot  cure  nations  of  their 
inveterate  prejudices,  let  us  endeavour, 
at  least,  to  prevent  them  from  again 
falling  into  those  excesses  into  Avhich 
religion  has  so  frequently  hurried  them ; 
let  men  form  to  themselves  chimeras ; 
let  them  think  of  them  as  they  will, 
provided  their  reveries  do  not  make 
them  forget  they  are  men,  and  that  a 
sociable  being  is  not  made  to  resemble 
ferocious  animals.  Let  us  balance  the 
fictitious  interests  of  heaven,  by  the 
sensible  interests  of  the  earth.  Let 
sovereigns,  and  the  people,  at  length 
acknowledge  that  the  advantages  re- 
sulting from  truth,  from  justice,  from 
good  laws,  from  a  rational  education, 
and  from  a  human  and  peaceable  mo- 
rality, are  much  more  solid  than  those 
which  they  so  vainly  expect  from  their 
Divinities  :  let  them  feel  that  benefits 
so  real  and  so  precious  ought  not  to  be 


sacrificed  to  uncertain  hopes,  so  fre- 
quently contradicted  by  experience.  In 
order  to  convince  themselves,  let  every 
rational  man  consider  the  numberless 
crimes  which  the  name  of  God  has 
caused  upon  the  earth ;  let  them  study 
his  frightful  history,  and  that  of  his 
odious  ministers,  who  have  every  where 
fanned  the  spirit  of  madness,  discord, 
and  fury.  Let  princes,  and  subjects 
at  least,  sometimes  learn  to  resist  the 
passions  of  these  pretended  interpreters 
of  the  Divinity,  especially  when  they 
shall  command  them  in  his  name  to 
be  inhuman,  intolerant,  and  barbarous ; 
to  stifle  the  cries  of  nature,  the  voice 
of  equity,  the  remonstrances  of  reason, 
and  to  shut  their  eyes  to  the  interests 
of  society. 

Feeble  mortals  !  how  long  will  your 
imagination,  so  active  and  so  prompt 
to  seize  on  the  marvellous,  continue  to 
seek,  out  of  the  universe,  pretexts  to 
make  you  injurious  to  yourselves,  and 
to  the  beings  with  whom  ye  live  in 
society  ?     Wherefore  do  ye  not  follow 
in  peace   the  simple  and  easy  route 
which  your  nature  has  marked  out  for 
ye  ?   Wherefore  strew  with  thorns  the 
road  of  life?  Wherefore  multiply  those 
sorrows  to  which  your  destiny  exposes 
ye?    What  advantages  can  ye  expect 
from  a  Divinity  which  the  united  ef- 
forts of  the  whole  human  species  have 
not  been  able  to  make  you  acquainted 
with  ?  Be  ignorant,  then,  of  that  which 
the  human  mind  is  not  formed  to  com- 
prehend ;  abandon  your  chimeras ;  oc- 
cupy yourselves  with  truth ;  learn  the 
art  of  living  happy  ;  perfection  your 
morals,  your  governments,  and  your 
laws  ;  look  to  education,  to  agriculture, 
and  to  the  sciences  that  are  truly  use- 
ful ;  labour  with  ardour ;  oblige  nature 
by  your  industry  to  become  propitious 
to  ye,  and  the  Gods  will  not  be* able 
to  oppose  any  thing  to  your  felicity. 
Leave  to  idle  thinkers,  and  tq  useless 
enthusiasts,   the   unfruitful   labour   of 
fathoming  depths  from  which  ye  ought 
:o   divert   your   attention  :   enjoy    the 
Benefits  attached  to  your  present  ex- 
istence ;  augment  the  number  of  them ; 
never  throw  yourselves  forward  beyond 
your  sphere.     If  you  must  have  chi- 
neras,  permit  your  fellow-creatures  to 
lave  theirs  also ;  and  do  not  cut  the 
throats  of  your  brethren,  when  they 
cannot  rave  in  your  own  manner.    If 


SENTIMENTS   CONTAINED   IN  THIS  WORK,  &c. 


299 


ye  will  have  Gods,  let  your  imagina- 
tion give  birth  to  them;  but  do  not 
Suffer  these  imaginary  beings  so  far  to 
intoxicate  ye  as  to  make  ye  mistake 
that  which  ye  owe  to  those  real  beings 
with  whom  ye  live.  If  ye  will  have 
unintelligible  systems,  if  ye  cannot 
be  contented  without  marvellous  doc- 
trines, if  the  infirmities  of  your  nature 
require  an  invisible  crutch,  adopt  such 
as  may  suit  with  your  humour ;  select 
those  which  you  may  think  most  cal- 
culated to  support  your  tottering  frame, 
do  not  insist  on  your  neighbours  ma- 
king the  same  choice  with  yourself:  but 
do  not  suffer  these  imaginary  theories 
to  infuriate  your  mind :  always  re- 
member that,  among  the  duties  you 
owe  to  the  real  beings  with  whom  ye 
are  associated,  the  foremost,  the  most 
consequential,  the  most  immediate, 
stands  a  reasonable  indulgence  for  the 
foibles  of  others. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Defence  of  the  Sentiments  contained  in  this 
Work.  Of  Impiety.  Do  there  exist  Athe- 
ists? 

WHAT  has  been  said,  in  the  course 
of  this  work,  ought  to  be  sufficient  to 
undeceive  those  men  who  are  capable 
of  reasoning  on  the  prejudices  to  which 
they  attach  so  much  importance.  But 
the  most  evident  truths  must  prove 
abortive  against  enthusiasm,  habit,  and 
fear  ;  nothing  is  more  difficult  than  to 
destroy  errour,  when  long  prescrip- 
tion has  given  it  possession  of  the  hu- 
man mind.  It  is  unassailable  when  it 
is  supported  by  general  consent,  pro- 
pagated by  education,  when  it  has 
grown  inveterate  by  custom,  when  it 
is  fortified  by  example,  maintained  by 
authority,  and  unceasingly  nourished 
by  the  hopes  and  the  fears  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  look  upon  their  errours  as  a 
remedy  for  their  sorrows.  Such  are 
the  united  forces  which  sustain  the 
empire  of  the  Gods  in  this  world,  and 
which  appear  to  render  their  throne 
firm  and  immoveable. 

We  need  not,  then,  be  surprised,  to 
see  the  greater  number  of  men  cherish 
their  own  blindness,  and  fear  the  truth. 
Every  where  we  find  mortals  obsti- 
nately attached  to  phantoms,  from 


which  they  expect  their  happiness, 
notwithstanding  these  phantoms  are 
evidently  the  source  of  all  their  sor- 
rows. Smitten  with  the  marvellous, 
disdaining  that  which  is  simple  and 
easy  to  be  comprehended,  but  little  in- 
structed in  the  ways  of  nature,  accus- 
tomed to  neglect  the  use  of  their  rea- 
son, the  uninformed,  from  age  to  age, 
prostrate  themselves  before  those  in- 
visible powers  which  they  have  been 
taught  to  adore.  They  address  their 
most  fervent  prayers  to  them,  they  im- 
plore them  in  their  misfortunes,  they 
despoil  themselves  for  them  of  the 
fruits  of  their  labour,  they  are  unceas- 
ingly occupied  with  thanking  these 
vain  idols  for  benefits  which  they  have 
not  received,  or  in  demanding  of  them 
favours  which  they  cannot  obtain. 
Neither  experience  nor  reflection  can 
undeceive  them  ;  they  do  not  perceive 
that  their  Gods  have  always  been  deaf; 
they  ascribe  to  it  their  own  conduct; 
they  believe  them  to  be  irritated  ;  they 
tremble,  they  groan,  and  they  sigh  at 
their  feet ;  they  strew  theic  altars  with 
presents ;  they  do  not  see  that  these 
beings,  so  powerful,  are  subjected  to 
nature,  and  are  never  propitious  but 
when  this  nature  is  favourable.  It  is 
thus  that  .nations  are  the  accomplices 
of  those  who  deceive  them,  and  are  as 
much  opposed  to  truth,  as  those  who 
lead  them  astray. 

In  matters  of  religion,  there  are  very 
few  persons  who  do  not  partake,  more 
or  less,  of  the  opinions  of  the  unin- 
formed. Every  man  who  throws  aside 
the  received  ideas,  is  generally  looked 
upon  as  a  madman,  a  presumptuous  be- 
ing, who  insolently  believes  himself 
much  wiser  than  others.  At  the  ma- 
gical names  of  religion  and  the  Divinity, 
a  sudden  and  panic  terrour  takes  pos- 
session of  men's  minds  ;  and  as  soon 
as  they  see  them  attacked,  society  is 
alarmed,  each  imagines  that  he  already 
sees  the  celestial  monarch  lift  his 
avenging  arm  against  the  country 
where  rebellious  nature  has  produced 
a  monster,  with  sufficient  temerity  to 
brave  his  wrath.  Even  the  most  mod- 
erate persons  tax  the  man  with  folly 
and  sedition  who  dares  to  contest,  with 
this  imaginary  sovereign,  those  rights 
which  good  sense  has  never  examined. 
In  consequence,  whoever  undertakes  to 
tear  the  veil  of  prejudice,  appears  an 


300 


DEFENCE  OF   THE    SENTIMENTS 


irrational  being,  and  a  dangerous  citi- 
zen ;  his  sentence  is  pronounced  with 
a  voice  almost  unanimous  ;  the  public 
indignation,  stirred  up  by  fanaticism 
and  imposture,  renders  it  impossible 
for  him  to  be  heard  ;  every  one  be- 
lieves himself  culpable  if  he  does  not 
display  his  fury  against  him,  and  his 
zeal  in  favour  of  a  terrible  God,  whose 
anger  is  supposed  to  be  provoked. 
Thus,  the  man  who  consults  his  rea- 
son, the  disciple  of  nature,  is  looked 
upon  as  a  public  pest ;  the  enemy  of 
an  injurious  phantom  is  regarded  as 
the  enemy  of  the  human  species ;  he 
who  would  establish  a  lasting  peace 
amongst  men,  is  treated  as  the  disturb- 
er of  society  ;  they  unanimously  pro- 
scribe him  who  should  be  disposed  to 
cheer  affrighted  mortals  by  breaking 
those  idols  under  which  prejudice 
has  obliged  them  to  tremble.  At  the 
bare  name  of  an  atheist,  the  supersti- 
tious man  quakes,  and  the  deist  him- 
self is  alarmed ;  the  priest  enters  the 
judgment-seat  with  fury,  tyranny  pre- 
pares his  funeral  pile  ;  the  uninformed 
applaud  those  punishments  which  ir- 
rational laws  decree  against  the  true 
friend  of  the  human  species. 

Such  are  the  sentiments  which  eve- 
ry man  must  expect  to  excite  who 
shall  dare  to  present  to  his  fellow-crea- 
tures that  truth  which  all  appear  to  be 
in  search  of,  but  which  all  fear  to 
find,  or  else  mistake  when  we  are  dis- 
posed to  show  it  to  them.  Indeed, 
what  is  an  atheist?  He  is  a  man, 
who  destroys  chimeras  prejudicial  to 
the  human  species,  in  order  to  recon- 
duct  men  back  to  nature,  to  experience, 
and  to  reason.  He  is  a  thinker,  who, 
having  meditated  upon  matter,  its  en- 
ergy, its  properties,  and  its  modes  of 
acting,  has  no  occasion,  in  order  to  ex- 
plain the  phenomena  of  the  universe, 
and  the  operations  of  nature,  to  invent 
ideal  powers,  imaginary  intelligences, 
beings  of  the  imagination,  who,  far 
from  making  him  understand  this  na- 
ture better,  do  no  more  than  render  it 
capricious,  inexplicable,  unintelligible, 
and  useless  to  the  happiness  of  man- 
kind. 

Thus,  the  only  men  who  can  have 
simple  and  true  ideas  of  nature,  are 
considered  as  absurd  or  knavish  spec- 
ulators. Those  who  form  to  them- 
selves intelligible  notions  of  the  mo- 


tive-power of  the  universe,  are  accused 
of  denying  the  existence  of  this  power : 
those  who  found  every  thing  that  is 
operated  in  this  world,  upon  constant 
and  certain  laws,  are  accused  of  at- 
tributing every  thing  to  chance  ;  they 
are  taxed  with  blindness  and  delirium 
by  those  enthusiasts  whose  imagina- 
tion, always  wandering  in  a  vacuum 
attributes  the  effects  of  nature  to  ficti- 
tious causes,  which  have  no  existence 
but  in  their  own  brain;  to  beings  of 
the  imagination,  to  chimerical  powers, 
which  they  obstinately  persist  in  pre- 
ferring to  real  and  known  causes.  No  . 
man,  in  his  proper  senses,  can  deny 
the  energy  of  nature,  or  the  existence 
of  a  power,  by  virtue  of  which  matter 
acts  and  puts  itself  in  motion ;  but  no 
man  can,  without  renouncing  his  rea- 
son, attribute  this  power  to  a  being 
placed  out  of  nature,  distinguished  from 
matter,  having  nothing  in  common 
with  it.  Is  it  not  saying  that  this  power 
does  not  exist,  to  pretend  that  it  re- 
sides in  an  unknown  being,  formed  by 
a  heap  of  unintelligible  qualities,  of 
incompatible  attributes,  from  whence 
necessarily  results  a  whole  impossible 
to  have  existence  ?  The  indestructi- 
ble elements,  the  atoms  of  Epicurus, 
of  which  the  motion,  the  meeting,  and 
the  combination,  have  produced  all  be- 
ings, are,  without  doubt,  causes  much 
more  real  than  the  theological  God. 
Thus,  to  speak  precisely,  they  are  the 
partisans  of  an  imaginary  and  contra- 
dictory being,  impossible  to  be  con- 
ceived, which  the  human  mind  can- 
not compass  on  any  side,  who  offer  us 
nothing  but  a  vague  name,  of  which 
nothing  can  be  affirmed  ;  they  are  those, 
I  say,  whomakeof  such  a  being  the  cre- 
ator, the  author,  the  preserver  of  the 
universe,  who  are  irrational.  Are  not 
those  dreamers,  who  are  incapable  of 
attaching  any  one  positive  idea  to  the 
cause  of  which  they  are  unceasingly 
speaking,  true  atheists?  Are  not 
those  thinkers,  who  make  a  pure  no- 
thing the  source  of  all  the  beings,  truly 
blind  men  ?  Is  it  not  the  height  of 
folly  to  personify  abstractions,  or  nega- 
tive ideas,  and  then  to  prostrate  our- 
selves before  the  fiction  of  our  own 
brain '? 

Nevertheless,  they  are  men  of  this 
temper  who  regulate  the  opinions  of 
the  world,  and  who  hold  out  to  public 


CONTAINED   IN  THIS  WORK. 


301 


scorn  and  vengeance,  those  who  arc 
more  rational  than  themselves.  If  you 
will  believe  but  these  profound  dream- 
ers, there  is  nothing  short  of  madness 
and  phrensy  that  can  reject  in  nature 
a  motive-power,  totally  incomprehen- 
sible. Is  it,  then,  delirium  to  prefer 
the  known  to  the  unknown  ?  Is  it  a 
crime  to  consult  experience,  to  call  in 
the  evidence  of  our  senses,  in  the  ex- 
amination of  the  thing  the  most  im- 
portant to  be  known  1  Is  it  a  horrid 
outrage,  to  address  ourselves  to  reason : 
to  prefer  its  oracles  to  the  sublime  de- 
cisions of  some  sophists,  who  them- 
selves acknowledge  that  they  do  not 
comprehend  any  thing  of  the  God 
whom  they  announce  to  us  ?  Never- 
theless, according  to  them,  there  is  no 
crime  more  worthy  of  punishment, 
there  is  no  enterprise  more  dangerous 
against  society,  than  to  despoil  the 
phantom,  which  they  know  nothing 
about,  of  those  inconceivable  qualities, 
and  of  that  imposing  equipage,  with 
which  imagination,  ignorance,  fear,  and 
imposture,  have  emulated  each  other 
in  surrounding  him ;  there  is  nothing 
more  impious  and  more  criminal  than 
to  cheer  up  mortals  against  a  spectre, 
of  which  the  idea  alone  has  been  the 
source  of  all  their  sorrows  ;  there  is 
nothing  more  necessary,  than  to  ex- 
terminate those  audacious  beings,  who 
have  sufficient  temerity  to  attempt  to 
break  an  invisible  charm,  which  keeps 
the  human  species  benumbed  in  errour ; 
— to  be  disposed  to  break  man's  chains, 
was  to  rend  asunder  his  most  sacred 
bonds. 

In  consequence  of  these  clamours, 
perpetually  renovated  by  imposture, 
and  repeated  by  ignorance,  those  na- 
tions, which  reason,  in  all  ages,  has 
sought  to  undeceive,  have  never  dared 
to  listen  to  her  benevolent  lessons. 
The  friends  of  mankind  were  never 
listened  to,  because  they  were  the 
enemies  of  their  chimeras.  Thus,  the 
people  continue  to  tremble  ;  very  few 
philosophers  have  the  courage  to  cheer 
them;  scarcely  any  person  dares  brave 
public  opinion,  infected  by  supersti-  j 
tion  ;  they  dread  the  power  of  impos- 
ture, and  the  menaces  of  tyranny,  which 
always  seek  to  support  themselves  by  I 
illusions.  The  yell  of  triumphant  ig-  j 
norance.  and  haughty  fanaticism,  at  all 
times  stifled  the  feeble  voice  of  nature  ; 


she  was  obliged  to  keep  silence,  her 
lessons   were   quickly    forgotten,   and 
when  she  dared  to  speak,  it  was  fre- 
i  quently   only  in  an  enigmatical   lan- 
]  guage,  unintelligible  to  the  greater  num- 
|  her  of  men.     How   should   the  unin- 
I  formed,  who  with  difficulty  compass 
|  truths  the  most  evident  and  the  most 
distinctly  announced,  have  been  able 
|  to  comprehend  the  mysteries   of  na- 
ture, presented  under  half  words  and 
emblems  1 

In  contemplating  the  outrageous  lan- 
guage which  is  excited  among  the  the- 
ologians, by  the  opinions  of  the  athe- 
ists, and  the  punishments  which  at 
their  instigation  were  frequently  de- 
creed against  them ;  should  we  not  be 
authorized  to  conclude,  that  these  doc- 
tors either  are  not  so  certain  as  they 
say  they  are  of  the  existence  of  their 
God,  or  else  that  they  do  not  consider 
the  opinions  of  their  adversaries  to  be 
quite  so  absurd  as  they  pretend  ?  It  is 
always  distrust,  weakness,  and  fear, 
that  render  men  cruel ;  they  have  no 
anger  against  those  whom  they  de- 
spise :  they  do  not  look  upon  folly  as  a 
punishable  crime  :  we  should  be  con- 
tent with  laughing  at  an  irrational 
mortal,  who  should  deny  the  existence 
of  the  sun ;  we  should  not  punish  him, 
if  we  were  not  irrational  ourselves. 
This  theological  fury  never  proves 
more  than  the  weakness  of  its  cause ; 
the  inhumanity  of  these  interested  men, 
whose  profession  it  is  to  announce 
chimeras  to  nations,  proves  to  us,  that 
they  alone  have  an  interest  in  these  in- 
visible powers,  of  whom  they  success- 
fully avail  themselves  to  terrify  mor- 
tals.* They  are,  however,  tyrants  of 
the  mind,  who,  but  little  consistent 
with  their  own  principles,  undo  with 
one  hand,  that  which  they  rear  with 
the  other :  they  are  those,  who  after 
having  made  a  Divinity,  filled  with 
goodness,  wisdom,  and  equity,  traduce, 
disgrace,  and  completely  annihilate 
him,  by  saying,  that  he  is  cruel,  that  he 
is  capricious,  unjust,  and  despotic,  that 
he  thirsts  after  the  blood  of  the  un- 
happy. This  granted,  these  men  are 
truly  impious. 


*  Lucian  describes  Jupiter,  who,  disputing 
with  Menippus,  is  disposed  to  strike  him  down 
with  thunder;  upon  which  the  philosopher 
says  to  him  :  "  Ah  !  thou  waxeth  wroth,  thou 
uscst  thy  thunder !  then  thou  art  in  the  wrong." 


302 


DEFENCE  OP  THE  SENTIMENTS 


He  who  knows  not  the  Divinity,  can- 
not do  him  an  injury,  nor  consequently, 
be  called  impious.  "  To  be  impious" 
says  Epicurus,  "  is  not  to  take  away 
from  the  uninformed  the  Gods  which 
they  have,  it  is  to  attribute  to  these 
Gods  the  opinions  of  the  uninformed." 
To  be  impious,  is  to  insult  a  God  in 
whom  we  believe ;  it  is  to  knowingly 
outrage  him.  To  be  impious,  is  to 
admit  a  good  God,  whilst  at  the  same 
time  we  preach  persecution  and  car- 
nage. To  be  impious,  is  to  deceive 
men,  in  the  name  of  a  God,  whom  we 
make  use  of  as  a  pretext  for  our  un- 
worthy passions.  To  be  impious,  is 
to  say,  that  a  God,  who  is  supremely 
happy  and  omnipotent,  can  be  offended 
by  his  feeble  creatures.  To  be  im- 
pious is  to  speak  falsely  on  the  part  of 
a  God  whom  we  suppose  to  be  the 
enemy  of  falsehood.  In  fine,  to  be 
impious,  is  to  make  use  of  the  Divinity, 
to  disturb  society,  to  enslave  them  to 
tyrants  ;  it  is  to  persuade  them,  that 
the  cause  of  imposture  is  the  cause  of 
God ;  it  is  to  impute  to  God  those 
crimes  which  would  annihilate  his  di- 
vine perfections.  To  be  impious  and 
irrational  at  the  same  time,  is  to  make 
a  mere  chimera  of  the  God  whom  we 
adore. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  be  pious,  is  to 
serve  our  country ;  it  is  to  be  useful  to 
our  fellow-creatures  ;  to  labour  to  their 
wellbeing :  every  one  can  put  in  his 
claim  to  it,  according  to  his  faculties  ; 
he  who  meditates,  can  render  himself 
useful,  when  he  has  the  courage  to  an- 
nounce truth,  to  combat  errour,  to  at- 
tack those  prejudices  which  every  where 
oppose  themselves  to  the  happiness  of 
mankind ;  it  is  to  be  truly  useful,  and 
it  is  even  a  duty,  to  wrest  from  the 
hands  of  mortals,  those  weapons  which 
fanaticism  distributes  to  them,  to  de- 
prive imposture  and  tyranny  of  that 
fatal  empire  of  opinion,  of  which  they 
successfully  avail  themselves  at  all 
times  and  in  all  places,  to  elevate  them- 
selves upon  the  ruins  of  liberty,  secu- 
rity, and  public  felicity.  To  be  truly 
pious,  is  to  religiously  observe  the 
wholesome  laws  of  nature,  and  to  fol- 
low faithfully  those  duties  which  she 
prescribes  to  us  ;  to  be  pious,  is  to  be 
humane,  equitable,  and  benevolent ;  is 
to  respect  the  rights  of  men.  To  be 
pious  and  rational,  is  to  reject  those 


reveries,  which  would  lead  us  to  mis- 
take the  sober  councils  of  reason. 

Thus,  whatever  fanaticism  and  im- 
posture may  say,  he  who  denies  the 
existence  of  a  God,  seeing  that  it  has 
no  other  foundation  than  an  alarmed 
imagination ;  he  who  rejects  a  God 
perpetually  in  contradiction  with  him- 
self; he  who  banishes  from  his  mind, 
and  his  heart,  a  God  continually  wres- 
tling with  nature,  reason,  and  the  hap- 
piness of  men ;  he,  I  say,  who  unde- 
ceives himself  on  so  dangerous  a  chi- 
mera, may  be  reputed  pious,  honest, 
and  virtuous,  when  his  conduct  shall 
not  deviate  from  those  invariable  rules, 
which  nature  and  reason  prescribe  to 
him.  Because  a  man  refuses  to  admit 
a  contradictory  God,  as  well  as  the 
obscure  oracles  which  are  given  out 
in  his  name,  does  it  then  follow,  that 
such  a  man,  refuses  to  acknowledge 
the  evident  and  demonstrable  laws  of 
a  nature  upon  which  he  depends,  of 
which  he  experiences  the  power,  of 
which  he  is  obliged  to  fulfil  the  neces- 
sary duties,  under  pain  of  being  pun- 
ished in  this  world  1  It  is  true,  that 
if  virtue,  by  chance,  consisted  in  an 
ignominious  renunciation  of  reason,  in 
a  destructive  fanaticism,  in  useless 
customs,  the  atheist  could  not  pass  for 
a  virtuous  being ;  but  if  virtue  con- 
sist in  doing  to  society  all  the  good  of 
which  we  are  capable,  the  atheist  may 
lay  claim  to  it ;  his  courageous  and 
tender  heart  will  not  be  guilty  for  hur- 
ling his  legitimate  indignation  against 
prejudices,  fatal  to  the  happiness  of 
the  human  species. 

Let  us  listen,  however,  to  the  im- 
putations which  the  theologians  lay 
upon  the  atheists ;  let  us  coolly  and 
without  peevishness  examine  the  ca- 
lumnies which  they  vomit  forth  against 
them :  it  appears  to  them  that  atheism 
is  the  highest  degree  of  delirium  that 
can  assail  the  mind,  the  greatest  stretch 
of  perversity  that  can  inflict  the  human 
heart ;  interested  in  blackening  their 
adversaries,  they  make  absolute  incre- 
dulity appear  to  be  the  effect  of  crime 
or  folly.  We  do  not,  say  they  to  us, 
see  those  men  fall  into  the  horrours  of 
atheism,  who  have  reason  to  hope  that 
the  future  state  will  be  for  them  a  state 
of  happiness.  In  short,  according  to 
our  theologians,  it  is  the  interest  of 
their  passions  which  makes  them  seek 


\        CONTAINED  IN  THIS  WORK. 


303 


to  doubt  the  existence  of  a  being,  to 
whom  they  are  accountable  for  the 
abuses  of  this  life ;  it  is  the  fear  of 
punishment  alone  which  is  known  to 
atheists  ;  they  are  unceasingly  repeat- 
ing the  words  of  a  Hebrew  prophet, 
who  pretends  that  nothing  but  folly 
makes  men  deny  the  existence  of  the 
Divinity.*  If  you  believe  some  others, 
"  nothing  is  blacker  than  the  heart 
of  an  atheist,  nothing  is  more  false 
than  his  mind."  "  Atheism,"  accord- 
ing to  them,  "  can  only  be  the  offspring 
of  a  tortured  conscience,  that  seeks  to 
disengage  itself  from  the  cause  of  its 
trouble."  "  We  have  a  right,"  says 
Derham,  "  to  look  upon  an  atheist  as 
a  monster  amongst  rational  beings,  as 
one  of  those  extraordinary  productions 
which  we  hardly  ever  meet  with  in 
the  whole  human  species,  and  who 
opposing  himself  to  all  other  men,  re- 
volts not  only  against  reason  and  hu- 
man nature,  but  against  the  Divinity 
himself." 

We  shall  simply  reply  to  all  these 
calumnies,  by  saving,  that  is  for  the 
reader  to  judge  if  the  system  of  athe- 
ism be  as  absurd  as  these  profound 
speculators,  perpetually  in  dispute  on 
the  uninformed,  contradictory,  and  fan- 
tastical productions  of, their  own  brain, 
would  have  it  believed  to  be  ?f  It  is 
true,  perhaps,  that  hitherto  the  system 
of  naturalism  has  not  been  developed 
in  all  its  extent;  unprejudiced  persons 
will,  at  least,be  enabled  to  know  whether 
the  author  has  reasoned  well  or  ill, 
whether  he  has  disguised  the  most  im- 
portant difficulties,  whether  he  has  been 
disingenuous,  whether,  like  unto  the 
enemies  of  human  reason,  he  has  had 
recourse  to  subterfuges,  to  sophisms, 
and  to  subtile  distinctions,  which  ought 


*  Dexit  insipiens  in  corde  suo  non  est  Deus. 
In  taking  away  the  negation,  the  proposition 
would  be  nearer  truth.  Those  who  shall  be 
disposed  to  see  the  abuse  which  theological 
spleen  knows  how  to  scatter  upon  atheists, 
have  only  to  read  a  work  of  Doctor  Bentley, 
entitled,  The.  Folly  of  Atiidsm:  it  is  trans- 
lated into  Latin,  in  octavo. 

t  In  seeing  the  theologians  so  frequently 
accuse  the  atheists  with  being  absurd,  we 
should  be  tempted  to  believe  that  they  have 
no  idea  of  that  which  the  atheists  have  to 
oppose  to  them  ;  it  is  true,  they  have  estab- 
lished an  excellent  method;  the  priests  say 
and  publish  what  they  please,  whilst  their  ad- 
versaries can  never  defend  themselves.  • 


always  to  make  it  be  suspected  of  those 
who  use  them,  either  that  they  do  not 
know,  or  that  they  fear  the  truth.  It 
belongs,  then,  to  candour,  to  disinter- 
estedness, and  to  reason,  to  judge 
whether  the  natural  principles,  which 
have  been  here  brought  forward,  be 
destitute  of  foundation ;  it  is  to  these 
upright  judges,  that  a  disciple  of  na- 
ture submits  his  opinions ;  he  has  a 
right  to  except  against  the  judgment 
of  enthusiasm,  of  presumptuous  igno- 
rance, and  interested  knavery.  Those 
persons  who  are  accustomed  to  think, 
will,  at  least,  find  reasons  to  doubt 
many  of  those  marvellous  notions, 
which  appear  as  incontestable  truths, 
only  to  those  who  have  never  examin- 
ed them  by  the  standard  of  good  sense. 
We  agree  with  Derham  that  atheists 
are  rare  ;  superstition  has  so  disfigured 
nature,  and  its  rights  ;  enthusiasm  has 
so  dazzled  the  human  mind  ;  terrour 
has  so  disturbed  the  hearts  of  men ; 
imposture  and  tyranny  have  so  en- 
slaved thought;  in  fine,  errour,  igno- 
rance, and  delirium,  have  so  perplexed 
and  entangled  the  clearest  ideas,  that 
nothing  is  more  uncommon,  than  to 
find  men  who  have  sufficient  courage  to 
undeceive  themselves  of  notions,  which 
every  thing  conspires  to  identify  with 
their  existence.  Indeed,  many  theolo- 
gians, in  despite  of  those  invectives 
with  which  they  attempt  to  overwhelm 
atheists,  appear  frequently  to  have 
doubted  whether  any  existed  in  the 
world,  or  if  there  were  persons  who 
could  honestly  deny  the  existence  of 
a  God.*  Their  uncertainty  was,  with- 


*  Those  same  persons,  who  at  the  present 
day  discover  atheism  to  be  such  a  strange 
system,  admit  there  could  have  been  atheists 
formerly.  Is  it,  then,  that  nature  has  endued 
us  with  a  less  portion  of  reason  than  she  did 
men  of  other  times  ?  Or  should  it  be  that  the 
God  of  the  present  day  would  be  less  absurd 
than  the  Gods  of  antiquity  ?  Has  the  human 
species  then  acquired  information;  with  re- 
spect to  this  concealed  motive-power  of  na- 
ture 1  Is  the  God  of  modern  mythology,  re- 
jected by  Vanini,  Hobbes,  Spinosa,  ana  some 
others,  more  to  be  credited  than  the  Gods  of 
the  pagan  mythology,  rejected  by  Epicurus, 
Strato,  Theodoras,  Diagoras,  &c.  &c.  ?  Ter- 
tullian  pretended  that  Christianity  had  dissi- 
pated that  ignorance  in  which  the  pagans 
were  immersed,  respecting  the  divine  essence, 
and  that  there  was  not  an  artisan  among  the 
Christians  who  did  not  see  God,  and  who  did 
not  know  him.  Nevertheless,  Tertullian  him- 
self admitted  a  corporeal  God,  and  was  there- 


304 


DEFENCE  OF  THE  SENTIMENTS 


out  doubt,  founded  upon  the  absurd 
ideas  which  they  ascribe  to  their  ad- 
versaries, whom  they  have  unceasingly 
accused  of  attributing  every  thing  to 
chance,  to  blind  causes,  to  dead  and 
inert  matter,  incapable  of  acting  by 
itself.  We  have,  I  think,  sufficiently 
justified  the  partisans  of  nature,  from 
these  ridiculous  accusations ;  we  have, 
throughout  the  whole,  proved,  and  we 
repeat  it,  that  chance  is  a  word  devoid 
of  sense,  which,  as  well  as  the  word 
God,  announces  nothing  but  an  igno- 
rance of  true  causes.  We  have  de- 
monstrated that  matter  is  not  dead  ; 
that  nature,  essentially  active,  and  self- 
existent,  had  sufficient  energy  to  pro- 
duce all  the  beings  which  it  contains, 
and  all  the  phenomena  which  we  be- 
hold. We  have,  throughout,  proved, 
that  this  jcause  was  much  more  real, 
and  more  easy  to  be  conceived  than 
the  fictitious,  contradictory,  inconceiv- 
able, and  impossible  cause,  to  which 
theology  ascribes  the  honour  of  those 
great  effects  which  it  admires.  We 
have  made  it  evident,  that  the  incom- 
prehensibility of  natural  effects  was 
not  a  sufficient  reason  for  assigning 
them  a  cause,  still  more  incomprehen- 
sible than  all  those  of  which  we  can 
have  a  knowledge.  In  fine,  if  the  in- 
comprehensibility of  God  does  not 
authorize  us  to  deny  his  existence,  it 
is  at  least  certain  that  the  incompati- 
bility of  the  attributes  which  they  ac- 
cord to  him,  authorizes  us  to  deny  that 
the  being  who  unites  them  can  be  any 
thing  more  than  a  chimera,  of  which 
the  existence  is  impossible. 

This  granted,  we  shall  be  able  to  fix 
the  sense  that  ought  to  be  attached  to 
the  name  of  atheist,  which,  notwith- 
standing, the  theologians,  lavish  in- 
discriminately upon  all  those  who  de- 
viate in  any  thing  from  their  revered 
opinion.  If  by  atheist,  be  designated 
a  man  who  denies  the  existence  of  a 
power  inherent  in  matter,  and  without 
which  we  cannot  conceive  nature,  and 
if  it  be  to  this  power  that  the  name  of 
God  is  given,  there  do  not  exist  any 
atheists,  and  the  word  under  which 
they  are  designated  would  only  an- 
nounce fools :  but,  if  by  atheists,  be 
understood  men  without  enthusiasm, 

fore  an  atheist,  according  to  the  notions  of 
modern  theology. — See  the  note  to  chap.  iv. 
of  this  volume,  page  237. 


guided  by  experience,  and  the  evidence 
of  their  senses,  who  see  nothing  in  na- 
ture but  that  which  they  find  really  to 
have  existence,  or  that  which  they  are 
capacitated  to  know  ;  who  do  not  per- 
ceive, and  cannot  perceive,  any  thing 
but  matter,  essentially  active  and  move- 
able,  diversely  combined,  enjoying  from 
itself  various  properties,  and  capable 
of  producing  all  the  beings  which  dis- 
play themselves  to  our  visual  faculties : 
if  by  atheists,  be  understood,  natural 
philosophers,  who  are  convinced  that, 
without  recurring  toa  chimerical  cause, 
they  can  explain  every  thing  simply 
by  the  laws  of  motion,  by  the  relations 
subsisting  between  beings,  by  their 
affinities,  their  analogies,  their  attrac- 
tion, and  their  repulsion  ;  by  their  pro- 
portions, their  composition,  and  their 
decomposition  :*  if  by  atheists  be  un- 
derstood those  persons  who  do  not 
know  what  a  spirit  is,  and  who  do  not 
see  the  necessity  of  spiritualizing,  or 
of  rendering  incomprehensible  those 
corporeal,  sensible,  and  natural  causes, 
which  they  see  act  uniformly  ;  who  do 
not  find  that  to  separate  the  motive- 
power  from  the  universe,  to  give  it  to 
a  being  placed  out  of  the  great  whole, 
to  a  being  of  an  essence  totally  incon- 
ceivable, and  whose  abode  cannot  be 
shown,  is  a  means  of  becoming  better 
acquainted  with  it :  if,  by  atheists,  be 
understood  those  men  who  ingenuous- 
ly allow  that  their  mind  cannot  con- 
ceive nor  reconcile  the  negative  attri- 
butes, and  the  theological  abstractions, 
with  the  human  and  moral  qualities, 


*  Dr.  Cudworth,  in  his  Sysfema  Intdlec- 
tuale,  chap.  ii.  reckons  four  species  of  atheists 
among  the  ancients:  1st,  The  disciples  of 
Anaximander,  called  Hylopathians,  who  at- 
tributed the  formation  of  every  thing  to  mat- 
ter, destitute  of  feeling.  2d,  The  atomists,  or 
the  disciples  of  Democritus,  who  attributed 
every  thing  to  the  concurrence  of  atoms.  3d, 
The  stoical  atheists,  who  admitted  a  blind 
nature,  hut  acting  under  certain  laws.  4th, 
The  Hylpzoists,  or  the  disciples  of  Strato, 
who  attributed  life  to  matter.  It  is  well  to 
observe,  that  the  most  learned  natural  philos- 
ophers of  antiquity  have  been  atheists,  either 
openly  or  secretly ;  but  their  doctrine  was  al- 
ways opposed  by  the  superstition  of  the  un- 
informed, and  almost  totally  eclipsed  by  the 
fanatical  and  marvellous  philosophy  of  Py- 
thagoras, and  above  all  by  that  of  Plato.  So 
true  it  is,  that,  enthusiasm,  and  that  which  is 
vague  and  obscure,  commonly  prevail  over 
that  which  is  simple,  natural,  and  intelligible. 
--SeeLe  Cltrc's  Select  Pieces,  vol.  ii. 


CONTAINED   IN  THIS   WORK. 


305 


which  are  attributed  to  the  Divinity ; 
or  those  men,  who  pretend  that  from 
this  incompatible  alliance,  there  can 
only  result  an  imaginary  being,  seeing 
that  a  pure  spirit  is  destitute  of  the  or- 
gans necessary  to  exercise  the  qualities 
and  faculties  of  human  nature :  if  by 
atheists  be  designated  those  men  who 
reject  a  phantom,  of  whom  the  odious 
and  discordant  qualities  are  calculated 
only  to  disturb  the  human  species,  and 
plunge  it  into  very  prejudicial  follies: 
if,  I  say,  thinkers  of  this  sort,  are  those 
who  are  called  atheists,  it  is  not  possi- 
ble to  doubt  of  their  existence;  and 
there  would  be  found  a  considerable 
number  of  them,  if  the  lights  of  sound 
natural  philosophy,  and  of  just  reason, 
were  more  generally  diffused ;  from 
thence  they  would  neither  be  consid- 
ered as  irrational,  nor  as  furious  beings, 
but  as  men  devoid  of  prejudice,  of 
whom  the  opinions,  or,  if  they  will,  the 
ignorance,  would  be  much  more  useful 
to  the  human  species,  than  those  sci- 
ences, and  those  vain  hypotheses,  which 
have  so  long  been  the  true  causes  of 
all  man's  sorrows. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  by  atheists, 
it  is  wished  to  designate  those  men 
who  are  themselves  obliged  to  avow 
that  they  have  no  one  idea  of  the  chi- 
mera whom  they  adore,  or  which  they 
announce  to  others  ;  who  cannot  ren- 
der themselves  an  account,  either  of 
the  nature,  or-of  the  essence  of  their 
deified  phantom  ;  who  can  never  agree 
amongst  themselves,  upon  the  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  their  God,  of  his 
qualities,  or  of  his  mode  of  action  ; 
Avho,  by  dint  of  negations,  have  made 
him  a  pure  nothing;  who  prostrate 
themselves,  or  cause  others  to  fall  pros- 
trate, before  the  absurd  fictions  of  their 
own  delirium ;  if,  I  say,  by  'atheists, 
be  designated  men  of  this  kind,  we 
shall  be  obliged  to  allow  that  the  world 
is  filled  with  atheists  ;  and  we  shall 
even  be  obliged  to  place  in  this  num- 
ber the  most  active  theologians  who 
are  unceasingly  reasoning  upon  that 
which  they  do  not  understand  ;  who 
are  disputing  upon  a  being  of  whom  i 
they  cannot  demonstrate  the  existence  ;  I 
who  by  their  contradictions  very  effi-  j 
caciously  undermine  his  existence :  , 
who  annihilate  their  perfect  good  be- 
ing, by  the  numberless  imperfections 
which  they  ascribe  to  him  ;  who  rebel 

No.  X.— 39 


against  this  God,  by  the  atrocious  char- 
acter under  which  they  depict  him. 
In  short,  we  shall  be  able  to  consider, 
as  true  atheists,  those  credulous  people, 
who,  upon  hearsay,  and  from  tradition, 
fall  upon  their  knees  before  a  being  of 
whom  they  have  no  other  ideas,-  than 
those  which  are  furnished  them  by 
their  spiritual  guides,  who  themselves 
acknowledge  that  they  comprehend  no- 
thing about  the  matter.  An  atheist  is 
a  man  who  does  not  believe  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God ;  npw,  no  one  can  be 
certain  of  the  existence  of  a  being  whom 
he  does  not  conceive,  and  who  is  said 
to  unite  incompatible  qualities. 

What  has  been  said,  proves  that  the 
theologians  themselves,  have  not  al- 
ways known  the  sense  which  they 
would  attach  to  the  word  atheist ;  they 
have  vaguely  calumniated  and  com- 
bated them  as  persons,  whose  senti- 
ments and  principles  were  opposed  to 
their  own.  Indeed,  we  find  that  these 
sublime  doctors,  always  infatuated  with 
their  own  particular  opinions,  have  fre- 
quently been  lavish  in  their  accusations 
of  atheism,  against  all  those  whom  they 
were  disposed  to  injure  and  to  blacken, 
and  whose  systems  they  sought  to  ren- 
der odious  :  they  were  certain  of  alarm- 
ing the  uninformed  and  the  silly,  by 
vague  imputation,  or  by  a  word  to 
which  ignorance  attaches  an  idea  of 
terrour,  because  they  have  no  know- 
ledge of  its  true  sense.  In  consequence 
of  this  policy,  we  have  frequently  seen 
the  partisans  of  the  same  religious  sect, 
the  adorers  of  the  same  God,  recipro- 
cally treat  each  other  as  atheist,  in  the 
heat  of  their  theological  quarrels:  to 
be  an  atheist,  in  this  sense,  is  not  to 
have,  in  every  point,  exactly  the  same 
opinions  as  those  with  whom  we  dis- 
pute upon  religion.  In  all  times,  the 
uninformed  have  considered  those  as 
atheists,  who  did  not  think  of  the  Di- 
vinity, precisely  in  the  same  manner  as 
the  guides  whom  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  follow.  Socrates,  the  adorer 
of  a  unique  God,  was  no  more  than  an 
atheist  in  the  eyes  of  the  Athenian 
people. 

Still  more,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served, those  persons  have  frequer 
been  accused  of  atheism,  who 
taken  the  greatest  pains  to  er 
the  existence  of  a  God,  but  - 
not  produced  satisfactory 


306 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE   WITH  MORALITY. 


When  on  a  similar  subject  the  proofs 
were  frail  and  perishable,  it  was  easy 
for  their  enemies  to  make  them  pass 
for  atheists,  who  have  wickedly  be- 
trayed the  cause  of  the  Divinity  by 
defending  him  too  feebly.  I  shall  here 
stop,  to  show  what  little  foundation 
there  is,  for  that  which  is  said  to  be  an 
evident  truth,  whilst  it  is  so  frequently 
attempted  to  be  proved,  and  yet  can 
never  be  verified,  even  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  those  who  boast  so  much  of 
being  intimately  convinced  of  it;  at 
least,  it  is  certain,  that  in  examining 
the  principles  of  those  who  have  es- 
sayed to  prove  the  existence  of  God, 
they  have  been  generally,  found  weak 
or  false,  because  they  could  not  be 
either  solid  or  true  ;  the  theologians 
themselves,  have  been  obliged  to  dis- 
cover, that  their  adversaries  could  draw 
from  them  inductions  quite  contrary  to 
those  notions,  which  they  have  an  in- 
terest in  maintaining ;  in  consequence, 
they  have  been  frequently  very  highly 
incensed,  against  those  who  believed 
they  had  discovered  the  most  forcible 
proofs  of  the  existence  of  their  God ; 
they  did  not  perceive,  that  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  lay  themselves  open  to 
attack  in  establishing  principles,  or  sys- 
tems, visibly  founded  upon  an  imagin- 
ary and  contradictory  being,  which  each 
man  sees  variously.* 

In  a  word,  all  those  who  have  taken 
the  cause  of  the  theological  God  in 

*  What  can  we  think  of  the  sentiments  of 
a  man  who  expresses  himself  like  Paschal,  in 
the  eighth  article  of  his  thoughts,  wherein  he 
discovers  a  most  complete' incertitude  upon 
the  existence  of  God?  "I  have  examined," 
says  he,  "  if  this  God,  of  whom  all  the  world 
speak,  might  not  have  left  some  marks  of 
himself.  I  look  every  where,  and  every  where 
I  see  nothing  but  obscurity.  Nature  offers 
me  nothing,  that  may  not  be  a  matter  of 
doubt  and  inquietude.  If  I  saw  nothing  in 
nature  which  indicated  a  Divinity,  I  should 
determine  with  myself  to  believe  nothing 
about  it.  If  I  every  where  saw  the  sign  of  a 
creator,  I  should  repose  myself  in  peace,  in 
the  belief  of  one.  But  seeing  too  much  to 
deny,  and  too  little  to  assure  me  of  his  exist- 
ence, I  am  in  a  situation  that  I  lament,  and  in 
which  I  have  a  hundred  times  wished,  that  if 
a  God  does  sustain  nature,  he  would  give  un- 
equivocal marks  of  it,  and  that  if  the  signs 
\vnich  he  has  given  be  deceitful,  that  he  would 
suppress  them  entirely :  that  he  said  all  or 
nothing,  to  the  end  that  I  might  see  which 
side  I  ought  to  follow."  Here  is  the  state  of  a 
good  mind,  wrestling  with  the  prejudice*  that 
enslave  it. 


hand,  with  the  most  vigour,  have  been 
taxed  with  atheism  and  irreligion  ;  his 
most  zealous  partisans  have  been  looked 
upon  as  deserters  and  traitors ;  the  most 
religious  theologians  have  not  been 
able  to  guaranty  themselves  from. this 
reproach  ;  they  have  mutually  lavished 
it  on  each  other,  and  all  have,  without 
doubt,  merited  it,  if  by  atheists  be 
designated  those  men  who  have  not 
any  idea  of  their  God  which  does  not 
destroy  itself,  as  soon  as  they  are  wil- 
ling to  submit  it  to  the  touchstone  of 
reason.! 


CHAPTER  X. 

Is  Atheism  compatible  with  Morality  7 

AFTER  having  proved  the  existence 
of  atheists,  let  us  return  to  the  calum- 
nies which  are  lavished  upon  them, 
by  the  deicoiists.  "  An  atheist,"  ac- 
cording to  Abbadie,  "  cannot  be  virtu- 
ous ;  to  him  virtue  is  only  a  chimera, 
probity  no  more  than  a  vain  scruple, 
honesty  nothing  but  foolishness.  He 
knows  no  other  law  than  his  interest  j, 
where  this  sentiment  prevails,  con- 
science is  only  a  prejudice,  the  law  of 
nature  only  an  illusion,  right  no  more 
than  errour ;  benevolence  has  no  longer 
any  foundation  ;  the  bonds  of  society 
are  loosened ;  fidelity  is  removed  ;  the 
friend  is  ready  to  betray  his  friend  ;  the 
citizen  to  deliver  up  his  country ;  the 
son  to  assassinate  his  father  in  order 
to  enjoy  his  inheritance,  whenever  he 
shall  find  an  occasion,  and  that  au- 


t  Whence  we  may  conclude  that  errour  will 
not  stand  the  test  of  investigation — that  it 
will  not  pass  the  ordeal  of  comparison— that 
it  is  in  its  hues  a  perfect  chameleon,  that  con- 
sequently it  can  never  do  more  than  lead  to* 
the  most  absurd  deductions.  Indeed,  the  most 
ingenious  systems,  when  they  have  their 
foundations  m  hallucination^  crumble  like  dust 
under  the  rude  hand  of  the  essayer :  the  most 
sublinated  doctrines,  when  they  lack  the  sub- 
stantive quality  of  rectitude,  evaporate  under 
the  scrutiny  of  the  sturdy  examiner  who  tries 
them  in  the  crucible.  It  is  not,  therefore,  by 
levelling  abusive  language  against  those  who 
investigate  sophisticated  theories,  that  they 
will  either  be  purged  of  their  absurdities,  ac- 
quire solidity,  or  find  an  establishment  to  give 
them  perpetuity.  In  short,  moral  obliquities- 
can  never  be  made  rectilinear  by  the  mere  ap- 
plication of  unintelligible  terms,  or  by  the  in- 
considerate jumble  of  discrepant  properties, 
however  gaudy  the  assemblage. 


ATHEISM   COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


307 


thority  or  silence,  will  shield  him  from 
the  arm  of  the  secular  power,  which 
alone  is  to  be  feared.  The  most  invio- 
lable rights,  and  the  most  sacred  laws, 
must  no  longer  be  considered,  but  as 
dreams  and  visions."* 

Such,  perhaps,  would  be  the  conduct, 
not  of  a  thinking,  feeling,  and  reflecting 
being,  susceptible  of  reason,  but  of  a 
ferocious  brute,  of  an  irrational  crea- 
ture, who  should  not  have  any  idea  of 
the  natural  relations  which  subsist  be- 
tween beings  necessary  to  their  recip- 
rocal happiness.  Can  it  be  supposed, 
that  a  man,  capable  of  experience,  fur- 
nished with  the  faintest  glimmerings 
of  good  sense,  would  lend  himself  to 
the  conduct  which  is  here  ascribed  to 
the  atheist,  that  is  to  say,  to  a  man, 
who  is  sufficiently  susceptible  of  reflec- 
tion to  undeceive  himself  by  reasoning 
upon  those  prejudices,  which  every 
thing  strives  to  show  him  as  important 
and  sacred  1  Can  it,  I  say,  be  sup- 
posed, that  there  is,  in  any  polished  so- 
ciety, a  citizen  sufficiently  blind  not  to 
acknowledge  his  most  natural  duties, 
his  dearest  interests,  the  danger  which 
he  runs  in  disturbing  his  fellow-crea- 
tures, or  in  following  no  other  rule  than 
his  momentary  appetites  1  A  being, 
who  reasons  the  least  in  the  world,  is 
he  not  obliged  to  feel  that  society  is 
advantageous  to  him,  that  he  has  need 
of  assistance,  that  the  esteem  of  his 
fellow-creatures  is  necessary  to  his 
happiness,  that  he  has  every  thing  to 
fear  from  the  wrath  of  his  associates, 
that  the  laws  menace  whoever  dare 
infringe  them?  Every  man,  who  has 
received  a  virtuous  education,  who  has 
in  his  infancy  experienced  the  tender 
cares  of  a  father,  who  has  in  conse- 
quence tasted  the  sweetness  of  friend- 
ship, who  has  received  kindness,  who 
knows  the  value  of  benevolence  and 
equity,  who  feels  the  pleasure  which 
the  affection  of  our  fellow-creatures 
procures  for  us,  and  the  inconvenience? 
which  result  from  their  aversion  and 
their  contempt,  is  he  not  obliged  to 
tremble  at  losing  such  manifest  ad- 
vantages, and  at  incurring  by  his  con- 
duct such  visible  dangers  1  Will  not 
the  hatred,  the  fear,  the  contempt  of 
himself,  disturb  his  repose,  every  time 

*  See  Abbadie  on  the  Truth  of  the.  Chris- 
tian Religion,  vol.  i.  chap.  xvii. 


that,  turning  inwardly  upon  his  own 
conduct,  he  shall  contemplate  himself 
Avith  the  same  eyes  as  others?  Is  there, 
then,  no  remorse,  but  for  those  who  be- 
lieve in  a  God  ?  The  idea  of  being 
seen  by  a  being  of  whom  we  have  at 
best  very  vague  notions,  is  it  more  for- 
cible, than  the  idea  of  being  seen  by 
men,  of  being  seen  by  ourselves,  of 
being  obliged  to  fear,  of  being  in  the 
cruel  necessity  of  hating  ourselves,  and 
to  blush  in  thinking  of  our  conduct, 
and  of  the  sentiments  which  it  must 
infallibly  inspire? 

This  granted,  we  shall  reply,  delibe- 
rately, to  this  Abbadie,  that  an  atheist 
is  a  man  who  knows  nature  and  its 
laws,  who  knows  his  own  nature,  and 
who  knows  what  it  imposes  upon  him. 
An  atheist  has  experience,  and  this  ex- 
perience proves  to  him,  every  moment, 
that  vice  can  injure  him,  that  his  most 
concealed  faults,  that  his  most  secret 
dispositions  may  be  detected  and  dis- 
play him  in  open  day  ;  this  experience 
proves  to  him  that  society  is  useful  to 
his  happiness ;  that  his  interest  de- 
mands he  should  attach  himself  to  the 
country  wrhich  protects  him,  and  which 
enables  him  to  enjoy  in  security  the 
benefits  of  nature  ;  every  thing  shows 
him,  that  in  order  to  be  happy,  he  must 
make  himself  beloved ;  that  his  father 
is  for  him  the  most  certain  of  friends ; 
that  ingratitude  would  remove  from 
him  his  benefactor;  that  justice  is  ne- 
cessary to  the  maintenance  of  every 
association ;  and  that  no  man,  what- 
ever may  be  his  power,  can  be  content 
with  himself,  when  he  knows  he  is  an 
object  of  public  hatred. 

He  who  has  maturely  reflected  upon 
himself,  upon  his  own  nature,  and  upon 
that  of  his  associates,  upon  his  own 
wants,  and  upon  the  means  of  satisfy- 
ing them,  cannot  be  prevented  from 
knowing  his  duties,  from  discovering 
that  which  he  owes  to  himself,  and  that 
which  he  owes  to  others  ;  then  he  has 
morality,  he  has  real  motives  to  con- 
form himself  to  its  dictates ;  he  is 
obliged  to  feel  that  these  duties  are 
necessary;  an'l  if  hi?  reason  be  not 
disturbed  by  blind  passions,  or  by  vi- 
cious habits,  he  will  feel  that  virtue  is 
for  all  men  the  surest  road  to  felicity. 
The  atheists,  or  the  fatalists,  found  all 
their  systems  upon  necessity ;  thus, 
their  moral  speculations,  founded  upon 


308 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


the  necessity  of  things,  are  at  least, 
much  more  permanent  and  more  in- 
variable than  those  which  only  rest 
upon  a  God  who  changes  his  aspect 
according  to  the  dispositions  and  the 
passions  of  all  those  who  contemplate 
him.  The  nature  of  things,  and  its 
immutable  laws,  are  not  subject  to 
vary  ;  the  atheist  is  always  obliged  to 
call  that  which  injures  him,  vice  and 
folly  ;  to  call  that  which  is  advantage- 
ous to  society,  or  which  contributes  to 
its  permanent  happiness,  virtue. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  principles  of 
the  atheist  are  much  less  liable  to  be 
shaken  than  those  of  the  enthusiast, 
who  founds  his  morality  upon  an  ima- 
ginary being,  of  whom  the  idea  so  fre- 
quently varies,  even  in  his  own  brain. 
If  the  atheist  deny  the  existence  of  a 
God,  he  cannot  deny  his  own  exist- 
ence, nor  that  of  beings  similar  to  him- 
self with  whom  he  sees  himself  sur- 
rounded ;  he  cannot  doubt  the  relations 
which  subsist  between  them  and  him, 
he  cannot  question  the  necessity  of  the 
duties  which  flow  from  these  relations; 
he  cannot,  then,  be  dubious  on  the 
principles  of  morality,  which  is  nothing 
more  than  the  science  of  the  relations 
subsisting  between  beings  living  to- 
gether in  society. 

If,  satisfied  with  a  barren  speculative 
knowledge  of  his  duties,  the  atheist 
do  not  apply  them  to  his  conduct ;  if 
hurried  aAvay  by  his  passions,  or  by 
criminal  habits,  if  given  up  to  shame- 
ful vices,  if  possessing  a  vicious  tem- 
perament, he  appear  to  forget  his  mo- 
ral principles,  it  does  not  follow  that 
he  has  no  principles,  or  that  his  prin- 
ciples are  false  ;  it  can  only  be  con- 
cluded from  such  conduct,  that,  in  the 
intoxication  of  his  passions,  in  the  con- 
fusion of  his  reason,  he  does  not  put  in 
practice  speculations  extremely  true  ; 
that  he  forgets  principles  ascertained, 
to  follow  those  propensities  which  lead 
him  astray. 

Nothing  is  more  common  amongst 
men  than  a  very  marked  discrepance 
between  the  mind  and  the  heart ;  that 
is  to  say,  between  the  temperament, 
the  passions,  the  habits,  the  whims, 
the  imagination,  and  the  mind,  or  the 
judgment,  assisted  by  reflection.  No- 
thing is  more  rare,  than  to  find  these 
things  in  harmony  ;  it  is  then  that  we 
see  speculation  influence  practice.  The 


most  certain  virtues,  are  those  which 
are  founded  upon  the  temperament  of 
men.  Indeed,  do  we  not  every  day  see 
mortals  in  contradiction  with  them- 
selves? Does  not  their  judgment  un- 
ceasingly condemn  the  extravagances 
to  which  their  passions  deliver  them 
up  ?.  In  short,  does  not  every  thing 
prove  to  -us,  that  men,  with  the  best 
theory,  have  sometimes  the  worst  prac- 
tice ;  and  with  the  most  vicious  theory, 
have  frequently  the  most  estimable  con- 
duct ?  In  the  blindest,  the  most  atro- 
cious superstitions,  and  those  which 
are  the  most  contrary  to  reason,  we 
meet  with  virtuous  men  ;  the  mildness 
of  their  character,  the  sensibility  of 
their  heart,  the  excellence  of  their  tem- 
perament, reconduct  them  to  humanity, 
and  to  the  laws  of  nature,  in  despite  of 
their  furious  theories.  Amongst  the 
adorers  of  a  cruel,  vindictive,  and  jeal- 
ous God,  we  find  peaceable  minds,  who 
are  enemies  to  persecution,  to  violence, 
and  to  cruelty  ;  and  amongst  the  dis- 
ciples of  a  God  filled  with  mercy  and 
clemency,  we  see  monsters  of  barbarity 
and  inhumanity.  Nevertheless,  the 
one  and  the  other  acknowledge  that 
their  God  ought  to  serve  them  for  a 
model :  wherefore  do  they  not  conform 
themselves  to  him  ?  It  is  because  the 
temperament  of  man  is  always  more 
powerful  than  his  God  ;  it  is  because 
the  most  wicked  Gods  cannot  always 
corrupt  a  virtuous  mind,  and  that  the 
most  gentle  Gods  cannot  always  re- 
strain hearts  driven  along  Ly  crime. 
The  organization  will  always  be  more 
puissant  than  religion:  present  objects, 
momentary  interests,  rooted  habits, 
public  opinion,  have  much  more  power 
than  imaginary  beings,  or  than  theories 
which  themselves  depend  upon  the 
organization  of  man. 

The  point  in  question,  then,  is  to 
examine  if  the  principles  of  the  atheist 
are  true,  and  not  if  his  conduct  is  com- 
mendable. An  atheist,  who,  having 
an  excellent  theory,  founded  upon  na- 
ture, experience,  and  reason,  delivers 
himself  up  to  excesses,  dangerous  to 
himself,  and  injurious  to  society,  is, 
without  doubt,  an  inconsistent  man. 
But  he  is  not  more  to  be  feared  than  a 
religious  and  zealous  man,  who.  be- 
lieving in  a  good,  equitable,  and  per- 
fect God,  does  not  scruple  to  commit 
the  most  frightful  excesses  in  his  name. 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


303 


An  atheistical  tyrant  would  not  be 
more  to  be  dreaded  than  a  fanatical 
tyrant.  An  incredulous  philosopher  is 
not  so  dreadful  as  an  enthusiastic  priest, 
who  fans  the  flame  of  discord  among 
his  fellow-citizens.  Would  then  an 
atheist,  clothed  with  power,  be  equally 
dangerous  as  a  persecuting  king,  a 
savage  inquisitor,  a  whimsical  devotee, 
or  a  morose  bigot  ?  These  are  assured- 
ly more  numerous  than  atheists,  of 
whom  the  opinions  and  the  vices  are 
far  from  heing  in  a  condition  to  have 
an  influence  upon  society,  which  is 
too  much  blinded  by  prejudice  to  be 
disposed  to  give  them  a  hearing. 

An  intemperate  and  voluptuous  athe- 
ist, is  not  a  man  more  to  be  feared  than 
he  who  is  superstitious,  who  knows 
how  to  connect  licentiousness,  libertin- 
ism, and  corruption  of  morals,  with  his 
religious  notions.  Can  it  be  imagined, 
with  sincerity,  that  a  man,  because  he 
is  an  atheist,  or  because  he  does  not 
fear  the  vengeance  of  Gods,  will  be 
continually  intoxicated,  will  corrupt 
the  wife  of  his  friend,  will  break  open 
his  neighbour's  dwelling,  and  permit 
himself  to  commit  all  those  excesses, 
which  are  the  most  prejudicial  to  him- 
self, or  the  most  deserving  of  punish- 
ment ?  The  blemishes  of  an  atheist, 
have  not,  then,  any  thing  more  extra- 
ordinary in  them,  than  those  of  the  re- 
ligious man,  they  have  nothing  to  re- 
proach his  doctrine  with.  A  tyrant, 
who  should  be  incredulous,  would  not 
be  a  more  incommodious  scourge  to 
his  subjects  than  a  religious  tyrant ; 
would  the  people  of  the  latter  be  more 
happy  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
tiger  who  governed  them  believed  in 
a  God,  heaped  presents  upon  his  priests, 
and  humiliated  himself  at  their  feet  1 
At  least,  under  the  dominion  of  an 
atheist,  they  would  not  have  to  appre- 
hend religious  vexations,  persecutions 
for  opinions,  proscriptions,  or  those 
strange  outrages,  for  which  the  in- 
terests of  Heaven  are  frequently  the 
pretext,  under  the  mildest  princes.  If 
a  nation  be  the  victim  of  the  passions 
and  the  folly  of  a  sovereign  who  is  an 
infidel,  it  will  not,  at  least,  suffer  from 
his  blind  infatuation  for  theological 
systems,  which  he  does  not  under- 
stand, nor  from  his  fanatical  zeal,  which 
of  all  the  passions  that  infest  kings,  is 
always  the  most  destructive  and  the 


most  dangerous.  An  atheistical  tyrant, 
who  should  persecute  for  opinions, 
would  be  a  man  not  consistent  with 
his  principles  ;  he  would  only  furnish 
one  more  example,  that  mortals  much 
more  frequently  follo\v  their  passions, 
their  interests,  their  temperaments, 
than  their  speculations.  It  is,  at  least, 
evident,  that  an  atheist  has  one  pretext 
less  than  a  credulous  prince,  for  exer- 
cising his  natural  wickedness. 

Indeed,  if  men  condescended  to  ex- 
amine things  coolly,  they  would  find 
that  the  name  of  God  is  never  made 
use  of  on  earth,  but  for  a  pretext  to  in- 
dulge their  passions.  Ambition,  im- 
posture, and  tyranny,  have  formed  a 
league,  to  avail  themselves  of  its  in- 
fluence, to  the  end  that  they  may  blind 
the  people,  and  bend  them  beneath 
their  yoke.  The  monarch  makes  use 
of  it,  to  give  a  divine  lustre  to  his  per- 
son, the  sanction  of  Heaven  to  his 
rights,  and  the  confidence  of  its  oracles 
to  his  most  unjust  and  most  extrava- 
gant whims.  The  priest  uses  it,  to 
give  currency  to  his  pretensions,  to 
the  end  that  he  may,  with  impunity, 
gratify  his  avarice,  pride,  and  inde- 
pendence. The  vindictive  and  en- 
raged superstitious  being  introduces 
the  cause  of  his  God,  that  he  may  give 
free  scope  to  his  fury,  which  he  quali- 
fies with  zeal.  In  short,  religion  be- 
comes dangerous,  because  it  justifies 
and  renders  legitimate  or  commendable 
those  passions  and  crimes,  of  which  it 
gathers  the  fruit :  according  to  its  min- 
isters, every  thing  is  permitted  to  re- 
venge the  Most  High;  thus  the  Di- 
vinity appears  to  be  made  only  to  au- 
thorize and  palliate  the  most  injurious 
transgressions.  The  atheist,  when  he 
commits  crimes,  cannot,  at  least,  pre- 
tend that  it  is  his  God  who  commands 
and  approves  them ;  this  is  the  excuse 
which  the  superstitious  being  offers  up 
for  his  wickedness  ;  the  tyrant  for  his 
persecutions  ;  the  priest  for  his  cruelty 
and  sedition;  the  fanatic  for  his  ex- 
cesses ;  the  penitent  for  his  inutility. 

"  They  are  not,"  says  Bayle,  "  the 
general  opinions  of  the  mind,  which 
determine  us  to  act,  but  the  passions." 
Atheism  is  a  system,  which  will  not 
make  a  good  man  wicked,  neither  will 
it  make  a  wicked  man  good.  "  Those," 
says  the  same  author,  "  who  embraced 
the  sect  of  Epicurus,  did  not  become 


310 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


debauchees  because  they  had  embraced 
the  doctrine  of  Epicurus ;  they  only 
embraced  the  doctrine  of  Epicurus,  thea 
badly  understood,  because  they  were 
debauchees."*  In  the  same  manner, 
a  perverse  man  may  embrace  atheism, 
because  he  will  flatter  himself,  that  this 
system  will  give  full  scope  to  his  pas- 
sions? he  will  nevertheless  be  deceiv- 
ed ;  atheism,  if  Avell  understood,  is 
founded  upon  nature  and  reason,  which 
never  will,  like  religion,  either  justify 
or  expiate  the  crimes  of  the  wicked. 

From  the  doctrine  which  makes  mo- 
rality depend  upon  the  existence  and 
the  will  of  a  God  who  is  proposed  to 
men  for  a  model,  there  unquestionably 
results  a  very  great  inconvenience. 
Corrupt  minds,  in  discovering  how 
much  each  of  these  suppositions  are 
erroneous  or  doubtful,  let  loose  the  rein 
of  all  their  vices,  and  concluded  that 
there  were  no  real  motives  to  do  good ; 
they  imagined  that  virtue,  like  the 
Gods,  was  only  a  chimera,  and  that 
there  was  not  any  reason  for  practising 
it  in  this  world.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
evident,  that  it  is  not  as  creatures  of 
God  that  we  are  bound  to  fulfil  the 
duties  of  morality  ;  it  is  as  men,  as  sen- 
sible beings,  living  together  in  society, 
and  seeking  to  secure  ourselves  a  happy 
existence,  that  we  feel  the  moral  obli- 
gation. Whether  there  exists  a  God, 
or  whether  he  exists  not,  our  duties 
will  be  the  same ;  and  our  nature,  if 
consulted,  Avill  prove,  that  vice  is  an 
evil,  and  that  virtue  is  a  real  and 
substantial  good.\ 


i 


*  See  Bayle's  Thoughts  on  Various  Sub- 

2'ects,  sec.  177.  Seneca  has  said  before  him  : 
ta  non  ab  Epicure*  impulsi  luxuriantur,  sed 
vitiis  dediti,  luxuriam  suam  in  philosophies 
sinu  abscondunt.—  See  Seneca,  de  vita  beata, 
chap.  xii. 

t  We  are  assured,  that  there  have  been 
found  philosophers  and  atheists,  who  deny 
the  distinction  of  vice  and  virtue,  and  \vho 
have  preached  up  debauchery  and  licentious- 
ness of  manners :  in  this  number,  may  be 
reckoned  Aristippus,  and  Theodoras,  sur- 
named  the  Atheist,  Bion,  the  Boristhenite, 
Pyrrho,  &c.  amongst  the  ancients,  (see  Dio- 
genes Laertius,)  and  amonst  the  moderns, 
the  author  of  the  Fable  of  the  Bees,  which, 
however,  could  only  be  intended  to  show,  that 
in  the  present  constitution  of  things,  vices 
have  identified  themselves  with  nations,  and 
have  become  necessary  to  them,  in  the  same 
manner  as  strong  liquors  to  those  who  have 
habituated  themselves  to  their  use.  The  au- 
thor who  published  the  Man  Automaton,  ha? 


If,  then,  there  be  found  atheists, 
who  have  denied  the  distinction  of 
good  and  evil,  or  who  have  dared  to 
strike  at  the  foundation  of  all  morality, 
we  ought  to  conclude,  that  upon  this 
point  they  have  reasoned  badly ;  that 
they  have  neither  been  acquainted  with 
the  nature  of  man,  nor  known  the 
true  source  of  his  duties ;  that  they 
have  falsely  imagined  that  morality 
as  well  as  theology,  was  only  an  ideal 
science,  and  that  the  Gods  once  de- 
stroyed, there  remained  no  longer  any 
bonds  to  connect  mortals.  Never- 
theless, the  slightest  reflection  would 
have  proved  to  them  that  morality  is 
founded  upon  the  immutable  relations 
subsisting  between  sensible,  intelligent, 
and  sociable  beings  ;  that  without  vir- 
tue no  society  can  maintain  itself;  that 
without  putting  a  curb  on  his  desires, 
no  man  can  conserve  himself.  Men 
are  constrained  from  their  nature  to 
love  virtue,  and  to  dread  crime,  by  the 
same  necessity  that  obliges  them  to 
seek  happiness,  and  fly  from  sorrow ; 
thus  nature  obliges  them  to  place  a 
difference  between  those  objects  which 
please  them,  and  those  which  injure 
them.  Ask  a  man  who  is  sufficiently 
irrational  to  deny  the  difference  be- 
tween virtue  and  vice,  if  it  would  be 
indifferent  to  him.  to  be  beaten,  robbed, 

reasoned  upe«i  morality  like  a  madman.  If 
all  these  authors  had  consulted  nature  upon 
morality,  as  well  as  upon  religion,  they  would 
have  found  that,  far  from  being  conducive  to 
vice  and  depravity,  it  is  conducive  to  virtue. 
Nunquam  aliud  natura,  aliud  sapientia  dicil. 

Juvenal,  sat.  14,  v.  321. 
Notwithstanding  the  pretended  dangers 
which  so  many  people  believe  they  see  in 
atheism,  antiquity  dia  not  judge  of  it  so  un- 
favourably. Diogenes  Laertius  informs  us, 
that  Epicurus  was  in  great  favour,  that  his 
country  caused  statues  to  be  erected  to  him, 
that  he  had  a  prodigious  number  of  friends, 
and  that  his  school  subsisted  for  a  very  long 
period.  See  Diogenes  Laertius,  x.  9.  Cicero, 
although  an  enemy  to  the  opinions  of  the  Epi- 
cureans, gives  a  brilliant  testimony  to  the  prob- 
ity of  Epicurus  and  his  disciples,  who  were 
remarkable  for  the  friendship  they  bore  each 
other.  See  Cicero  de  Finibus,  ii.  25.  The 
philosophy  of  Epicurus  was  publicly  taught 
in  Athens  during  many  centuries,  and  Lactan- 
tius  says,  that  it  was  the  most  followed. 
Epicuri  disciplina  multo  celebrior  semper  fiiit 
quam  caeterorum.  V.  Institut.  Divin.  iii.  17. 
In  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  there  was  at 
Athens  a  public  professor  of  the  philosophy  of 
Epicurus,  paid  by  that  emperor,  who  was  him- 
self a  stoic. 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


311 


calumniated,  repaid  with  ingratitude, 
dishonoured  by  his  wife,  insulted  by 
his  children,  and  betrayed  by  his  friend  ? 
His  answer  will  prove  to  you,  that, 
whatever  he  may  say,  he  makes  a  differ- 
ence in  the  actions  of  men ;  and  that 
the  distinction  of  good  and  evil  does 
not  depend  either  upon  the  conventions 
of  men,  or  upon  the  ideas  which  they 
can  have  upon  the  Divinity  ;  upon  the 
punishments  or  upon  the  recompenses 
Avhich  he  prepares  them  in  the  other 
life. 

On  the  contrary,  an  atheist,  who 
should  reason  with  justness,  would 
feel  himself  much  more  interested  than 
another,  in  practising  those  virtues  to 
which  he  finds  his  happiness  attached 
in  this  world.  If  his  views  do  not  ex- 
tend themselves  beyond  the  limits  of 
his  present  existence,  he  must  at  least 
#  desire  to  see  his  days  roll  on  in  happi- 
ness and  in  peace.  Every  man.  who, 
during  the  calm  of  his  passions,  falls 
back  upon  himself,  will  feel  that  his 
interest  invites  him  to  conserve  him- 
self; that  his  felicity  demands  that  he 
should  take  the  necessary  means  to 
enjoy  life  peaceably,  and  exempt  from 
alarm  and  remorse.  Man  owes  some- 
thing to  man,  not  because  he  would 
offend  a  God  if  he  were  to  injure  his 
fellow-creature,  but  because,  in  doing 
him  an  injury,  he  would  offend  a  man, 
and  would  violate  the  laws  of  equity, 
in  the  maintenance  of  which,  every  be- 
ing of  the  human  species  finds  himself 
interested. 

We  every  day  see  persons  who  are 
possessed  of  great  talents,  knowledge, 
and  penetration,  join  to  them  the  most 
hideous  vices,  and  have  a  very  corrupt 
heart:  their  opinions  may  be  true  in 
some  respects,  and  false  in  a  great 
many  others  ;  their  principles  may  be 
just,  but  the  inductions  which  they 
draw  from  them  are  frequently  defec- 
tive and  precipitate.  A  man  may  have 
at  the  same  time  sufficient  knowledge 
to  undeceive  himself  of  some  of  his 
errours,  and  too  little  energy  to  divest 
himself  of  his  vicious  propensities. 
Men  are  only  that  which  their  organi- 
zation, modified  by  habit,  by  education, 
by  example,  by  the  government,  by 
transitory  or  permanent  circumstances, 
makes  them.  Their  religious  ideas 
and  their  imaginary  systems  are  obliged 
to  yield  or  accommodate  themselves  to 


their  temperaments,  their  propensities, 
and  their  interests.  If  the  system, 
which  makes  man  an  atheist,  does  not 
remove  from  him  the  vices  Avhich  he 
had  before,  neither  does  it  give  him 
any  new  ones  :  whereas,  superstition 
furnishes  its  disciples  with  a  thousand 
pretexts  for  committing  evil  without 
remorse,  and  even  to  applaud  them- 
selves for  the  commission  of  crime. 
Atheism,  at  least,  leaves  men  such  as 
they  are  ;  it  will  not  render  a  man  more 
intemperate,  more  debauched,  more 
cruel,  than  his  temperament  before  in- 
vited him  to  be ;  whereas  superstition 
gives  loose  to  the  most  terrible  pas- 
sions, or  else  procures  easy  expia- 
tions for  the  most  dishonourable  vices. 
"Atheism,"  says  Chancellor  Bacon, 
"  leaves  to  man  reason,  philosophy, 
natural  piety,  laws,  reputation,  and  ev- 
ery thing  that  can  serve  to  conduct  him 
to  virtue  ;  but  superstition  destroys  all 
these  things,  and  erects  itself  into  a 
tyranny  over  the  understandings  of 
men :  this  is  the  reason  why  atheism 
never  disturbs  the  government,  but 
renders  man  more  clear-sighted,  as  see- 
ing nothing  beyond  the  bounds  of  this 
life."  The  same  author  adds,  that 
"  the  times  in  which  men  have  turned 
towards  atheism  have  been  the  most 
tranquil :  whereas  superstition  has  al- 
ways inflamed  their  minds  and  carried 
them  on  to  the  greatest  disorders,  be- 
cause it  infatuates  the  people  with  nov- 
elties, which  wrest  from,  and  carry 
with  them  all  the  authority  of  govern- 
ment."* 

Men  habituated  to  meditate,  and  to 
make  study  a  pleasure,  are  not  com- 
monly dangerous  citizens ;  whatever 
may  be  their  speculations,  they  never 
produce  sudden  revolutions  upon  the 
earth.  The  minds  of  the  people,  at  all 
times  susceptible  of  being  inflamed  by 
the  marvellous  and  by  enthusiasm,  ob- 
stinately resist  the  most  simple  truths, 
and  never  heat  themselves  for  systems 
which  demand  a  long  train  of  reflec- 
tion and  reasoning.  The  system  ot 
atheism  can  only  be  the  result  of  long 
and  connected  study  ;  of  an  imagina- 
tion cooled  by  experience  and  reason- 
ing. The  peaceable  Epicurus  nevier 
disturbed  Greece ;  the  poem  of  Lucre- 
tius caused  no  civil  wars  in  Rome; 


*  See  the  Moral  Essays  of  Bacon. 


312 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


Bodin  was  not  the  author  of  the  league ; 
the  writings  of  Spinosa  have  not  ex- 
cited the  same  troubles  in  Holland,  as 
the  disputes  of  Gomar  and  d'Armi- 
nius.  Hobbes  did  not  cause  blood  to 
flow  in  England,  although,  in  his  time, 
religious  fanaticism  made  a  king  perish 
on  the  scaffold. 

In  short,  we  can  defy  the  enemies  to 
human  reason  to  cite  a  single  example 
which  proves,  in  a  decisive  manner, 
that  opinions  purely  philosophical,  or 
directly  contrary  to  religion,  have  ever 
excited  disturbances  in  the  state.  Tu- 
mults have  always  arisen  from  theolo- 
gical opinions,  because  both  princes  and 
people  have  always  foolishly  believed 
they  ought  to  take  a  part  in  them. 
There  is  nothing  so  dangerous  as  that 
empty  philosophy  which  the  theolo- 
gians have  combined  with  their  sys- 
tems. It  is  to  philosophy  corrupted  by 
priests,  to  which  it  peculiarly  belongs 
to  fan  the  flames  of  discord,  invite  the 
people  to  rebellion,  and  cause  rivers  of 
blood  to  flow.  There  is  no  theological 
question  which  has  not  occasioned  im- 
mense mischief  to  man ;  whilst  all  the 
writings  of  the  atheists,  whether  an- 
cient or  modern,  have  never  caused  any 
evil  but  to  their  authors,  whom  omnip- 
otent imposture  has  frequently  immo- 
lated at  his  shrine. 

The  principles  of  atheism  are  not 
formed  for  the  mass  of  the  people,  who 
are  commonly  under  the  tutelage  of 
their  priests ;  they  are  not  calculated 
for  those  frivolous  and  dissipated  minds 
who  fill  society  with  their  vices  and 
their  inutility  ;  they  are  not  suited  to 
the  ambitious,  to  those  intriguers,  and 
xestless  minds,  Avho  find  their  interest 
in  disturbing  the  harmony  of  the  social 
compact;  much  less  are  they  made  for 
a  great  number  of  persons  enlightened 
in  other  respects,  who  have  but  very 
rarely  the  courage  to  completely  di- 
vorce themselves  from  the  received  pre- 
judices. 

So  many  causes  unite  themselves  to 
•confirm  men  in  those  errours,  which 
they  have  been  made  to  suck  in  with 
their  mother's  milk,  that  every  step  that 
removes  them  from  these  fallacies,  costs 
them  infinite  pains.  Those  persons  who 
are  most  enlightened,  frequently  cling 
on  some  side  to  the  general  prejudice. 
We  feel  ourselves  as  it  were  isolated  ; 
we  do  not  speak  the  language  of  socie- 


ty, when  we  are  alone  in  our  opinions ; 
it  requires  courage  to  adopt  a  mode  of 
thinking  that  has  but  few  approvers. 
In  those  countries  where  human  know- 
ledge has  made  some  progress,  and 
where,  besides,  a  certain  freedom  of 
thinking  is  enjoyed,  we  can  easily  find 
a  great  number  of  deists  or  of  incred- 
ulous beings,  who,  contented  with  hav- 
ing trampled  under  the  foot  the  grosser 
prejudices  of  the  uninformed,  have  not 
dared  to  go  back  to  the  source,  and  cite 
the  Divinity  himself  before  the  tribunal 
of  reason.  If  these  thinkers  did  not 
stop  on  the  road,  reflection  would  quick- 
ly prove  to  them,  that  the  God  whom 
they  have  not  the  courage  to  examine, 
is  a  being  as  injurious,  and  as  revolt- 
ing to  good  sense,  as  any  of  those  doc- 
trines, mysteries,  fables,  or  supersti- 
tious customs,  of  which  they  have  al- 
ready acknowledged  the  futility  ;  they 
would  feel,  as  we  have  already  proved, 
that  all  these  things  are  no  more  than 
the  necessary  consequences  of  those 
primitive  notions  which  men  have  in- 
dulged respecting  their  divine  phantom, 
and  that,  in  admitting  this  phantom, 
they  have  no  longer  any  rational  cause 
to  reject  those  inductions  which  th» 
imagination  must  draw  from  it.  A  lit- 
tle attention  would  show  them  that  it 
is  precisely  this  phantom  who  is  the 
true  cause  of  all  the  evils  of  society ; 
that  those  endless  quarrels,  and  those 
bloody  disputes  to  which  religion  and 
the  spirit  of  party  every  instant  give 
birth,  are  the  inevitable  effects  of  the 
importance  which  they  attach  to  a 
chimera,  ever  calculated  to  kindle  the 
minds  of  men  into  combustion.  In 
short,  it  is  easy  to  convince  ourselves 
that  an  imaginary  being,  who  is  al- 
ways painted  under  a  terrific  aspect, 
must  act  in  a  lively  manner  upon  the 
imagination,  and  must  produce,  sooner 
or  later,  disputes,  enthusiasm,  fanati- 
cism, and  delirium. 

Many  persons  acknowledge  that  the 
extravagances  to  which  religion  gives 
birth,  are  real  evils;  many  persons 
complain  of  the  abuse  of  religion, 
but  there  are  very  few  who  feel  that 
this  abuse  and  these  evils  are  the  ne- 
cessary consequences  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  all  religion,  which 
can  itself  be  founded  only  upon  those 
grievous  notions  which  men  are  obliged 
to  form  of  the  Divinity.  We  daily  see 


ATHEISM  COMPATIBLE  WITH  MORALITY. 


313 


persons  undeceived  upon  religion,  whu 
pretend,  nevertheless,  that  this  religion 
is  necessary  for  the  people,  who  coulc 
not  be  kept  within  bounds  without  it 
But,  to  reason  thus,  is  it  not  to  say 
that  poison  is  useful  to  the  people,  tha 
it  is  proper  to  poison  them,  to  preven 
them  from  making  a  bad  use  of  thci 
power  ?      Is  it  not  to  pretend  that  it  i: 
advantageous  to  render  them  absurd 
irrational,  and  extravagant;  that  they 
have  need  of  phantoms,  calculated  to 
make  them  giddy,  to  blind  them,  anc 
to  submit  them  to  fanatics  or  to  impos- 
tors, who  will  avail  themselves  of  their 
follies   to   disturb   the  repose  of  the 
world  1     Besides,  is  it  quite  true  tha 
religion  has   a   useful  influence  over 
the  morals  of  the  people  ?     It  is  very 
easy  to  see  that  it  enslaves  them  with- 
out rendering  them  better ;  it  makes  a 
herd  of  ignorant  slaves,  whom  their 
panic  terrours  keep  under  the  yoke  oi 
tyrants   and   priests;   it  forms  stupid 
beings,  who  know  no  other  virtue  than 
a  blind  submission  to  futile  customs, 
to  which  they  attach  a  much  greater 
value  than  to  real  virtues,  or  to  the  du- 
ties of  morality,  which  have  never  been 
made  known  to  them.      If,  by  chance, 
this  religion  restrains  some  few  timid 
individuals,  it   does   not  restrain  the 
greatest  number,  who  suffer  themselves 
to  be  hurried  along  by  the  epidemical 
vices  with  which  they  are  infected.  It  is 
in  those  countries  where  superstition 
has  the  greatest  power,  wherein  we  shall 
always  find  the  least  morality.     Vir- 
tue is  incompatible  with  ignorance,  su- 
perstition, and  slavery  ;  slaves  are  only 
kept  in  subordination  by  the  fear  of 
punishments ;    ignorant   children    are 
intimidated  only  for  an  instant  by  ima- 
ginary terrours.    To  form  men,  to  have 
virtuous  citizens,  it  is  necessary  to  in- 
struct them,  to   show  them  truth,   to 
speak  reason  to  them,  to  make  them 
feel  their  interests,  to  learn  them  to  re- 
spect themselves,  and  to  fear  shame  ; 
to  excite  in  them  the  ideas  of  true  hon- 
oicr,  to  make  them  know  the  value  of 
virtue,  and  the  motives  for  following 
it.     How  can  these  happy  effects  be 
expected  from  religion,  which  degrades 
men,  or  from  tyranny  which  only  pro- 
poses to  itself   to   vanquish  them,  to 
divide  them,  and  to  keep  them  in  an 
abject  condition  ? 

The  false  ideas  which  so  manv  per- 
No.  X.— 40 


sons  have  of  the  utility  of  religion, 
which  they  at  least  judge  to  be  calcu- 
lated to  restrain  the  people,  arise  from 
the  fatal  prejudice  that  there  are  use- 
ful errours,  and  that  truth  may  be  dan- 
gerous. This  principle  is  completely 
calculated  to  eternise  the  sorrows  of  the 
earth  ;  whoever  shall  have  the  courage 
to  examine  these  things,  will  acknow- 
ledge, without  hesitation,  that  all  the 
miseries  of  the  human  species  are  to 
be  ascribed  to  their  errours,  and  that 
of  these,  religious  errours  must  be  the 
most  prejudicial  from  the  haughtiness 
with  which  they  inspire  sovereigns, 
from  the  importance  which  is  attached 
to  them,  from  the  abject  condition  which 
they  prescribe  to  subjects,  from  the 
phrensy  which  they  excite  among  the 
people :  we  shall  therefore  be  obliged 
to  conclude,  that  the  sacred  errours  of 
men  are  those  of  which  the  interest  of 
mankind  demands  the  most  complete 
destruction,  and  that  it  is  principally 
to  the  annihilation  of  them,  that  sound 
philosophy  ought  to  be  employed.  It 
is  not  to  be  feared,  that  this  attempt 
will  produce  either  disorders  or  revolu- 
tions ;  the  more  freedom  with  which 
truth  shall  be  spoken,  the  more  con- 
vincing it  will  appear ;  the  more  sim- 
ple it  shall  be,  the  less  it  will  seduce 
men  who  are  smitten  with  the  marvel- 
lous ;  even  those  men  who  seek  after 
truth  with  the  most  ardour,  have  an 
irresistible  inclination,  that  urges  them 
on,  and  incessantly  disposes  them  to 
reconcile  errour  with  its  opposite.* 

Here  is,  unquestionably,  the  reason 
why  atheism,  of  which,  hitherto,  the 
principles  have  not  been  sufficiently 
developed,  appears  to  alarm  even  those 
sersons  who  are  the  most  destitute  of 
jrejudice.  They  find  the  interval  too 
great  between  the  vulgar  superstition, 
and  absolute  irreligion ;  they  believe 
they  take  a  wise  medium,  in  com- 


*  The  illustrious  Bayle,  who  teaches  us  so 
ably  to  think,  says,  with  abundant  reason, 
hat  "  there  is  nothing  but  a  good  and  solid 
philosophy,  which  can  like  another  Hercules, 
exterminate  those  monsters  called  popular 
jrrours :  it  is  that  alone  which  can  set  the 
mind  at  liberty."  See  Thoughts  on  Various 
Subjects,  §21.  Lucretius  had  said  before  him  : 
Hunc  igitur  terrorem  animi,  tenebrasque 

necesse  est 

Non  radii  solis,  neque  lucida  tela  dici 
Diacutiant,  sod  naturae  species,  ratioque. 
lib.  i.  v.  147. 


314 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


pounding  with  errour ;  they  reject  the 
consequence  while  admitting  the  prin- 
ciple ;  they  preserve  the  phantom  with- 
out foreseeing  that,  sooner  or  later,  it 
must  produce  the  same  effects,  and 
give  birth,  one  after  another,  to  the 
same  follies  in  the  heads  of  human 
beings.  The  major  part  of  the  incred- 
ulous and  of  the  reformers,  do  no 
more  than  prune  a  cankered  tree,  to 
whose  roots  they  have  not  dared  to 
apply  the  axe ;  they  do  not  see  that 
this  tree  will,  in  the  end,  reproduce 
the  same  fruits.  Theology,  or  religion, 
will  always  be  a  heap  of  combustible 
matter ;  generated  in  the  imagination 
of  mankind,  it  will  always  finish  by 
causing  conflagrations.  As  long  as 
the  sacerdotal  order  shall  have  the 
privilege  of  infecting  youth,  of  habitu- 
ating it  to  tremble  before  words,  of 
alarming  nations  with  the  name  of  a 
terrible  God,,  fanaticism  will  be  master 
of  the  mind,  imposture  will,  at  its 
pleasure,  sow  discord  in  the  state. 
The  most  simple  phantom,  perpetually 
fed,  modified,  and  exaggerated  by  the 
imagination  of  men,  will  by  degrees 
become  a  colossus  sufficiently  power- 
ful to  upset  every  mind  and  overthrow 
empires.  Deism  is  a  system  at  which 
the  human  mind  cannot  stop  long; 
founded  upon  a  chimera,  sooner  or 
later,  it  will  be  seen  to  degenerate  into 
an  absurd  and  dangerous  superstition. 
Many  incredulous  beings,  and  many 
deists  are  met  with  in  those  countries 
where  liberty  of  thought  reigns  ;  that 
is  to  say,  where  the  civil  power  has 
known  how  to  counterbalance  super- 
stition. But  above  all,  atheists  will  be 
found  in  those  nations,  where  super- 
stition, backed  by  the  sovereign  author- 
ity, makes  the  weight  of  its  yoke  felt, 
and  imprudently  abuses  its  unlimited 
power.*  Indeed,  when,  in  this  kind 

i  *  Atheists  are,  it  is  said,  more  rare  in  Eng- 
land and  in  Protestant  countries,  where  toler- 
ation is  established,  than  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries,  where  the  princes  are  commonly  in- 
tolerant and  enemies  to  the  liberty  of  thought. 
In  Japan,  in  Turkey,  in  Italy,  and  above  all 
in  Rome,  many  atheists  are  found.  The  more 
power  superstition  has,  the  more  those  minds 
which  it  has  not  been  able  to  subdue  will  re- 
volt against  it.  It  is  Italy  that  produced  Jor- 
dano  Bruno,  Campanella,  Vanini,  &c.  There 
is  every  reason  to  believe,  that  had  it  not  been 
for  the  persecutions  and  ill  treatment  of  the 
synagogue,  Spinosa  would  never  have  per- 


of  countries,  science,  talents,  the  seeds 
of  reflection  are  not  entirely  stifled  : 
the  greater  part  of  the  men  who  think, 
revolt  at  the  crying  abuses  of  religion, 
at  its  multifarious  follies,  at  the  cor- 
ruption and  the  tyranny  of  its  priests, 
at  those  chains  which  it  imposes,  be- 
lieving with  reason,  that  they  can  never 
remove  themselves  too  far  from  its 
principles ;  the  God  who  serves  for 
the  basis  of  such  a  religion,  becomes 
as  odious  to  them  as  the  religion  it- 
self; if  this  oppresses  them  they  ascribe 
it  to  God.  they  feel  that  a  terrible,  jeal- 
ous, and  vindictive  God,  must  be  served 
by  cruel  ministers  ;  consequently,  this 
God  becomes  a  detestable  object  to 
every  enlightened  and  honest  mind 
amongst  whom  are  always  found  the 
love  of  equity,  liberty,  humanity,  and 
indignation  against  tyranny.  Oppres- 
sion gives  a  spring  to  the  soul,  it  obliges 
man  to  examine  closely  the  cause  of 
his  sorrows  ;  misfortune  is  a  powerful 
incentive,  that  turns  the  mind  to  the 
side  of  truth.  How  formidable  must 
not  irritated  reason  be  to  falsehood  ? 
It  tears  away  its  mask,  it  follows  it 
even  into  its  last  entrenchment ;  it  at 
least  inwardly  enjoys  its  confusion. 


CHAPTER  XL 

Of  the  Motives  which  lead  to  Atheism  ?  Can 
this  System  be  Dangerous  ?  Can  it  be  Em- 
braced by  the  Uninformed  ? 

THE  preceding  reflections  will  fur- 
nish us  wherewith  to  reply  to  those 
who  ask  what  interest  men  have  in  not 
admitting  a  God?  The  tyrannies,  the 
persecutions,  the  numberless  outrages 
committed  in  the  name  of  this  God, 
the  stupidity  and  the  slavery  into  which 

haps  promulgated  his  system.  It  may  also 
be  presumed,  that  the  horrours  produced  in 
England  by  fanaticism,  which  cost  Charles  I. 
his  head,  pushed  Hobbes  on  to  atheism :  the 
indignation  which  he  also  conceived  at  the 
power  of  the  priests,  suggested,  perhaps,  his 
principles  so  favourable  to  the  absolute  power 
of  kings.  He  believed  that  it  was  more  ex- 
pedient for  a  state  to  have  a  single  civil  des- 
pot, a  sovereign  over  religion  itself,  than  to 
nave  a  multitude  of  spiritual  tyrants,  always 
ready  to  disturb  it.  Spinosa  seduced  by  the 
ideas  of  Hobbes,  fell  into  the  same  errour  in 
his  Tractates  Tlieologico-Politicus,  as  well  a» 
in  his  Treatise  de  Jure  Ecclesiasiicorum. 


..MOTIVES  WHICH    LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


315 


the  ministers  of  this  God  every  where 
plunge  the  people ;  the  bloody  dispute:- 
to  which  this  God  gives  birth ;  th< 
number  of  unhappy  beings  with  whicl 
his  fatal  idea  fills  the  world,  are  they 
then  not  motives  sufficiently  powerful 
sufficiently  interesting  to  determine  aL 
sensible  men  who  are  capable  of  think- 
ing, to  examine  the  titles  of  a  being 
who  causes  so  many  evils  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  earth  ? 

A  theist,  very  estimable  for  his 
talents,  asks,  if  there  can  be  any  other 
cause  than  an  evil  disposition  which 
can  make  men  atheists  ?*  I  reply  to 
him,  yes,  there  are  other  causes ;  there 
is  the  desire  of  having  a  knowledge  of 
interesting  truths ;  there  is  the  power- 
ful interests  of  knowing  what  opinion 
to  hold  upon  the  object  which  is  an- 
nounced to  us  as  the  most  important ; 
there  is  the  fear  of  deceiving  ourselves 
upon  the  being  who  occupies  himself 
with  the  opinions  of  men,  and  who 
does  not  permit  that  they  should  de- 
ceive themselves  respecting  him  with 
impunity.  But  when  these  motives  or 
these  causes  should  not  subsist,  are  not 
indignation,  or.  if  they  will,  an  evil  dis- 
position, legitimate  causes,  good  and 
powerful  motives,  for  closely  examin- 
ing the  pretensions  and  the  rights  of 
an  invisible  tyrant,  in  whose  name  so 
many  crimes  are  committed  on  the 
earth  ?  Can  any  man,  who  thinks,  who 
feels,  who  has  any  elasticity  in  his 
soul,  prevent  himself  from  being  in- 
censed against  an  augtere  despot,  who 
is  visibly  the  pretext  and  the  source 
of  all  those  evils  with  which  the  hu- 
man species  is  assailed  on  every  side  ? 
Is  it  not  this  fatal  God  who  is  at  once 
the  cause  and  the  pretext  of  that  iron 
yoke  which  oppresses  men,  of  that 

*  See  Lord  Shaftesbury  in  his  Lstter  on 
Enthusiasm.  Spencer  says,  that  "it  is  by 
the  cunning  of  the  devil  who  strives  to  render 
the  Divinity  hateful,  that  he  is  represented  to 
us  under  that  revolting  character  which  ren- 
ders him  like  unto  the  head  of  Medusa,  inso- 
much that  men  are  sometimes  obliged  to 
plunare  into  atheism,  inr  order  to  dis^nnrnss 
themselves  from  this  hideous  demon."  "But 
it  might  be  said  to  Spencer,  that  the  demon 
if/io  strives  to  render  the  Divinity  haicful  is 
the  interest  of  the  clergy,  which  was  in  all 
times  and  in  every  country,  to  terrify  men,  in 
order  to  make  them  the  slaves  and  the  in- 
struments of  their  passions.  A  God  who 
should  not  make  men  tremble  would  be  of  no 
use  whatever  to  the  priests. 


slavery  in  which  they  live,  of  that 
blindness  which  covers  them,  of  that 
superstition  which  disgraces  them,  of 
those  irrational  customs  which  torment 
them,  of  those  quarrels  which  divide 
them,  of  those  outrages  which  they 
experience  ?  Must  not  every  mind  in 
which  humanity  is  not*  extinguished, 
irritate  itself  against  a  phantom,  who, 
in  every  country,  is  made  to  speak  only 
like  a  capricious,  inhuman,  and  irra- 
tional tyrant  ? 

To  motives  so  natural,  we  shall  join 
those  which  are  still  more  urgent  and 
personal  to  every  man  who  reflects : 
namely,  that  troublesome  fear,  which 
must  have  birth,  and  be  unceasingly 
nourished  by  the  idea  of  a  capricious 
God,  so  touchy,  that  he  irritates  him- 
self against  man,  even  for  his  most 
secret  thoughts,  who  can  be  offended 
without  our  knowing  it,  and  whom  we 
are  never  certain   of  pleasing ;  who, 
moreover,  is  not  restrained  by  any  of 
the  ordinary  rules  of  justice,  who  owes 
nothing  to  the  feeble  work  of  his  hands, 
who  permits  his  creatures  to  have  un- 
happy  propensities,  who  gives  them 
liberty  to  follow  them,  to  the  end  that 
he  may  have  the  odious  satisfaction  of 
punishing  them  for  faults,  which  he 
suffers  them  to  commit  ?  What  can  be 
more  reasonable,  and  more  just,  than 
to  verify  the  existence,  the  qualities, 
and  the  rights  of  a  judge,  who  is  so 
severe  that  he  will  everlastingly  avenge 
the  crimes  of  a  moment  ?     Would  it 
not  be  the  height  of  folly,  to  wear  with- 
out inquietude,  like  the  greater  number 
of  mortals,  the  overwhelming  yoke  of 
a  God,  always  ready  to  crush  us  in 
bis  fury.     The  frightful  qualities  with 
which   the  Divinity  is  disfigured   by 
those  impostors  who  announce  his  de- 
crees, oblige   every  rational  being  to 
drive  him  from  his  heart,  to  shake  off 
iiis  detestable  yoke,  and  to  deny  the 
existence  of  a  God,  who  is  rendered 
lateful  by  the  conduct  which  is  as- 
cribed to  him  ;    to  scorn  a  God  who 
is  rendered  ridiculous  by  those  fables, 
ivhich  in  every  country  are  detailed  of 
him.     If  there  existed  a  God  who  was 
ealous  of  his  glory,  the  crime  the  most 
:alculated  to  irritate  him  would  un- 
questionably be  the  blasphemy  of  those 
cnaves  who  unceasingly  paint  him  un- 
der the  most  revolting  character;  this 
od  ought  to  be  much  more  offended 


31ft 


MOTIVES   WHICH   LEAD  TO  ATH  El  S  M,  <tc.' 


against  his  hideous  ministers  than 
against  those  who  deny  his  exist- 
ence. The  phantom  which  supersti- 
tion adores,  while  cursing  him  at  the 
hottom  of  his  heart,  is  an  object  so  ter- 
rible that  every  wise  man  who  medi- 
tates upon  it.  is  obliged  to  refuse  him 
his  homage,  t<3  hate  him,  to  prefer  anni- 
hilation to  the  fear  of  falling  into  his 
cruel  hands.  It  is  frightful,  the  fa- 
natic cries  out  to  us,  to  fall  into  the 
hands  of  the  living  God ;  and  in  or- 
der that  he  may  escape  falling  into 
them,  the  man  who  thinks  maturely, 
will  throw  himself  into  the  arms  of 
nature  ;  and  it  is  there  alone  that  he 
will  find  a  safe  asylum  against  those 
continual  storms,  which  supernatural 
ideas  produce  in  the  mind. 

The  deist  will  not  fail  to  tell  the 
atheist  that  God  is  not  such  as  super- 
stition paints  him.  But  the  atheist  will 
reply  to  him,  that  superstition  itself, 
and  all  the  absurd  and  prejudicial  no- 
tions to  which  it  gives  birth,  are  only 
corollaries  of  those  false  and  obscure 
principles  which  are  held  respecting 
the  Divinity.  That  his  incomprehen- 
sibility suffices  to  authorize  the  incom- 
prehensible absurdities  and  mysteries 
which  are  told  of  him,  that  these  mys- 
terious absurdities  flow  necessarily  from 
an  absurd  chimera  which  can  only  give 
birth  to  other  chimeras,  which  the  be- 
wildered imagination  of  mortals  will 
incessantly  multiply.  This  fundamen- 
tal chimera  must  be  annihilated  to  as- 
sure the  repose  of  man,  that  he  may 
know  his  true  relations  and  his  duties, 
and  obtain  that  serenity  of  soul  with- 
out which  there  is  no  happiness  on  the 
earth.  If  the  God  of  the  superstitious 
be  revolting  and  mournful,  the  God  of 
the  theist  will  always  be  a  contradicto- 
ry being,  who  will  become  fatal,  when 
he  shall  meditate  on  him,  or  with  which, 
sooner  or  later,  imposture  will  not  fail 
to  abuse  him.  Nature  alone,  and  the 
truths  which  she  discovers  to  us,  are 
capable  of  giving  to  the  mind  and  to 
the  heart,  a  firmness,  which  falsehood 
will  not  be  able  to  shake. 

Let  us  again  reply  to  those  who  un- 
ceasingly repeat,  that  the  interest  of 
the  passions  alone  conduct  us  to  athe- 
ism, and  that  it  is  the  fear  of  punish- 
ments to  come,  that  determine  corrupt 
men  to  make  efforts  to  annihilate  this 
judge  whom  they  have  reason  to  dread. 


We  shall,  without  hesitation,  agree 
that  the  interests  and  the  passions  of 
men  excite  them  to  make  inquiries  ; 
without  interest  no  man  is  tempted  to 
seek ;  without  passion  no  man  will 
seek  vigorously.  The  question,  then, 
to  be  examined  here,  is,  if  the  passions 
and  interests,  which  determine  some 
thinkers  to  examine  the  rights  of  God, 
are  legitimate  or  not  ?  We  have  ex- 
posed these  interests,  and  we  have 
found  that  every  rational  man  finds  in 
his  inquietudes  and  his  fears,  reasona- 
ble motives,  to  ascertain  whether  or 
not  it  be  necessary  to  pass  his  life  in 
perpetual  fears  and  agonies  ?  Will  it 
be  said,  that  an  unhappy  being,  unjust- 
ly condemned  to  groan  in  chains,  has 
not  the  right  of  desiring  to  break  them, 
or  to  take  some  means  of  liberating 
himself  from  his  prison,  and  from  those 
punishments  which  menace  him  at 
each  instant  ?  Will  it  be  pretended 
that  his  passion  for  liberty  has  no  le- 
gitimate foundation,  and  that  he  does 
an  injury  to  the  companions  of  his 
misery,  in  withdrawing  himself  from 
the  strokes  of  tyranny,  and  in  furnish- 
ing them  with  assistance  to  escape  from 
these  strokes  also  ?  Is,  then,  an  in- 
credulous man  any  thing  more  than 
one  who  has  escaped  from  the  general 
prison  in  which  tyrannical  imposture 
detains  all  mankind?  Is  not  an  athe- 
ist who  writes,  one  that  has  escaped, 
and  furnishes  to  those  of  his  associates, 
who  have  sufficient  courage  to  follow 
him,  the  means  of  setting  themselves 
free  from  the  terrours  which  menace 
them  ?* 


*  The  priests  unceasingly  repeat  that  it  is 
pride,  vanity,  and  the  desire  of  distinguishing 
himself  from  the  generality  of  mankind,  that 
determines  man  to  incredulity.  In  this  they 
act  like  the  great,  who  treat  all  those  as  t'n- 
solent,  who  refuse  to  cringe  before  them. 
Would  not  every  rational  man  have  a  right 
to  ask  a  priest,  where  is  thy  superiority  in 
matters  of  reasoning?  What  motives  can  I 
have  to  submit  my  reason  to  thy  delirium  ? 
On  the  other  hand,  may  it  not  be  said  to  the 
clergy  that  it  is  interest  which  makes  them 
priests  :  that  it  is  interest  which  renders  them 
theologians ;  that  it  is  the  interest  of  their 
passions,  of  their  pride,  of  their  avarice,  of 
their  ambition,  &c.,  which  attaches  them  to 
their  systems,  of  which  they  alone  reap  the 
benefits'?  Whatever  it  may  be,  the  priests, 
contented  with  exercising  their  empire  over 
the  uninformed,  ought  to  permit  those  men 
who  think,  not  to  bend  their  knee  before  their 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO   ATHEISM,  &e. 


317 


We  also  agree,  that  frequently  th( 
co.ruption  of  morals,  debauchery,  li 
centiousness,  and  even  levity  of  mind 
can   conduct  men  to  irreligion  or   to 
incredulity ;  but  it  is  possible  to  be  a 
libertine,  irreligious,   and   to  make    a 
parade  of  incredulity,  without  being  an 
atheist  on  that  account :  there  is  un- 
questionably a  difference  between  those 
who  are  led  to  irreligion  by  dint  o: 
reasoning,    and   those   who   reject   or 
despise   religion,    only    because    they 
look  upon  it  as  a  melancholy  object, 
or  an  incommodious  restraint.     Many 
people   renounce   received   prejudices 
through  vanity,  or  upon  hearsay  ;  these 
pretended  strong  minds  have  examined 
nothing  for  themselves,   they  act  on 
the   authority    of  others,  whom   they 
suppose  to  have  weighed  things  more 
maturely.     This  kind   of  incredulous 
beings    have    not,    then,   any    certain 
ideas,  and  are  but  little  capacitated  to 
reason  for  themselves  ;  they  are  hardly 
in  a  state  to  follow  the  reasoning  of 
others.      They   are  irreligious  in  the 
same  manner  as  the  majority  of  men 
are  religious,  that  is  to  say,  by  credu- 
lity, like  the  people,  or  through  interest, 
like  the  priests.     A  voluptary,  a  de- 
bauchee,  buried  in  drunkenness ;   an 
ambitious  mortal,  an  intriguer,  a  frivo- 
lous and  dissipated  man,  a  loose  woman, 
a  choice   spirit  of  the  day,  are  they 
personages  really  capable  of  judging 
of  a  religion  which  they  have  not  deep- 
ly examined  and  maturely  weighed, 
of  feeling  the  force  of  an  argument,  of 
comparing   the   whole   of  a  system  ? 
If  they  sometimes  discover  some  faint 
glimmerings  of  truth  amidst  the  tem- 
pest of  their  passions,  which  blind  them, 
these  leave  on  them  only  some  evanes- 
cent traces,  no  sooner  received  than 
obliterated.     Corrupt  men  attack  the 
Gods  only  when  they  conceive  them 
to  be  the  enemies  of  their  passions.* 

vain  idols.    Tertullian   has   said,  quis  enim 
philosophum  sacrificare  compellit  I 

See  Tertull.  Apolog.  Chap.  614. 

*  Arian  says,  that  when  men  imagine  the 
Gods  are  in  opposition  to  their  passions,  they 
abuse  them  and  overturn  their  altars. 

The  bolder  the  sentiments  of  an  atheist, 
and  the  more  strange  and  suspicious  they 
appear  to  other  men,  the  more  strictly  and 
scrupulously  he  ought  to  observe  and  to  per- 
form his  duties,  especially  if  he  be  not  desir- 
ous that  hie  morals  should  calumniate  his 


The  honest  man  attacks  them  because 
he  finds  they  are  inimical  to  virtue,  in- 
jurious to  his  happiness,  contradictory 
to  his  repose,  and  fatal  to  the  human 
species. 

Whenever  our  will  is  moved  by  con- 
cealed and  complicated  motives,  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  decide  what  de- 
termines it ;  a  wicked  man  may  be  led 
to  irreligion  or  to  atheism  by  those 
motives  which  he  dare  not  avow  even 
to  himself:  he  may  form  to  himself  an 
illusion  and  only  follow  the  interest  of 
his  passions  in  believing  he  seeks  after 
truth ;  the  fear  of  an  avenging  God  will 
perhaps  determine  him  to  deny  his 
existence  without  much  examination, 
uniformly  because  he  is  incommodious 
to  him.  Nevertheless,  the  passions 
happen  to  be  sometimes  just ;  a  great 
interest  carries  us  on  to  examine  things 
more  closely  :  it  may  frequently  make 
a  discovery  of  the  truth,  even  to  him 
who  seeks  after  it  the  least,  or  who  is 
only  desirous  of  being  lulled  asleep, 
and  of  deceiving  himself.  It  is  the 
same  with  a  perverse  man  who  stum- 
bles upon  the  truth,  as  it  is  with  him 
who,  flying  from  an  imaginary  danger, 
should  find  in  his  road  a  dangerous 
serpent,  which  in  his  haste  he  should 
kill ;  he  does  that  by  accident,  and 
without  design,  which  a  man  less 
trouble'd  in  his  mind  would  have  done 
with  premeditated  deliberation.  A 
wicked  man  who  fears  his  God,  and 
who  would  escape  from  him,  may 
certainly  discover  the  absurdity  of 
ihose  notions  which  are  entertained  of 
nim,  without  discovering  for  that  reason 
that  those  same  notions  in  no  wise 
change  or  alter  the  evidence  and  the 
necessity  of  his  duties. 

To  judge  properly  of  things,  it  is 
necessary  to  be  disinterested ;  it  is 
necessary  to  have  an  enlightened  and 
connected  mind  to  compass  a  great 
system.  It  belongs  only  to  the  honest 
man,  to  examine  the  proofs  of  the  ex- 
stence  of  a  God,  and  the  principles  of 
religion  ;  it  belongs  only  to  the  man 
acquainted  with  nature  and  its  ways, 
o  embrace  with  intelligence  the  cause 
)f  the  System  of  Nature.  The  wicked 
and  the  ignorant  are  incapable  of judg- 

iystem,  which,  duly  weighed,  will  make  the 
necessity  and  the  certitude  of  morality  felt, 
whilst  every  species  of  religion  tends  to  render 

t  problematical,  or  even  to  corrupt  it. 


319 


MOTIVES   WHICH  LEAD   TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


ing  with  candour ;  the  honest  and  vir- 
tuous are  alone  competent  judges  in  so 
weighty  an  affair.  What  do  I  say  ?  is 
not  the  virtuous  man  from  thence  in  a 
situation  to  desire  the  existence  of  a 
God  who  remunerates  the  goodness  of 
men  1  If  he  renounce  these  advantages 
which  his  virtue  gives  him  the  right  to 
hope  for,  it  is  because  he  finds  them 
imaginary,  as  well  as  the  remunerator 
who  is  announced  to  him  ;  and  that  in 
reflecting  on  the  character  of  this  God, 
he  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  rely  upon  a  capricious 
despot,  and  that  the  enormities  and 
follies  to  which  he  serves  as  a  pretext, 
infinitely  surpass  the  pitiful  advantages 
that  can  result  from  his  idea.  Indeed, 
every  man  who  reflects,  quickly  per- 
ceives that  for  one  timid  mortal,  of 
whom  this  God  restrains  the  feeble 
passions,  there  are  millions  whom  he 
cannot  curb,  and  of  whom,  on  the  con- 
trary, he  excites  the  fury  ;  for  one  that 
he  consoles,  there  are  millions  whom 
he  affrights,  whom  he  afflicts,  whom 
he  obliges  to  groan  ;  in  short,  he  finds 
that  against  one  inconsistent  enthu- 
siast, which  this  God,  whom  he  be- 
lieves good,  renders  happy,  he  carries 
discord,  carnage,  and  affliction,  into 
vast  countries,  and  plunges  whole  peo- 
ple in  grief  and  tears. 

However  this  may  be,  do  no\  let  us 
inquire  into  the  motives  which  may 
determine  a  man  to  embrace  a  system : 
let  us  examine  the  system,  let  us  con- 
vince ourselves  if  it  be  true,  and  if  we 
shall  find  that  it  is  founded  upon  truth, 
we  shall  never  be  able  to  esteem  it 
dangerous.  It  is  always  falsehood 
which  injures  men  ;  if  errour  be  visibly 
the  source  of  their  sorrows,  reason  is 
the  true  remedy  for  them.  Do  not  let 
us  farther  examine  the  conduct  of  a 
man  who  presents  us  with  a  system  ; 
his  ideas,  as  we  have  already  said, 
may  be  extremely  sound,  when  even 
his  actions  are  highly  deserving  cen- 
sure. If  the  system  of  atheism  cannot 
render  him  perverse  who  is  not  so  by 
his  temperament,  it  cannot  render  him 
good  who  does  not  otherwise  know  the 
motives  which  should  conduct  him  to 
virtue.  At  least,  we  have  proved  that 
the  superstitious  man,  when  he  has 
strong  passion,*  and  a  depraved  heart, 
finds  even  in  his  religion  a  thousand 
pretexts  more  than  the  atheist  for  in- 


!  juring  the  human  species.  The  atheist 
!  has  not,  at  least,  the  mantle  of  zeal  to 
|  cover  his  vengeance,  his  transports,  and 
|  his  fury  ;  the  atheist  has  not  the  faculty 
I  of  expiating,  at  the  expense  of  money, 
or  by  the  aid  of  certain  ceremonies,  the 
outrages  which  he  commits  against 
society ;  he  has  not  the  advantage  of 
being  able  to  reconcile  himself  with 
his  God,  and  by  some  easy  custom,  to 
quiet  the  remorse  of  his  disturbed  con- 
science ;  if  crime  has  not  deadened 
every  feeling  of  his  heart,  he  is  obliged 
continually  to  carry  within  himself  an 
inexorable  judge,  who  unceasingly  re- 
proaches him  for  his  odious  conduct, 
who  forces  him  to  blush,  to  hate  him- 
self, and  to  fear  the  looks  and  the  re- 
sentment of  others.  The  superstitious 
man,  if  he  be  wicked,  gives  himself  up 
to  crime,  which  is  followed  by  re- 
morse ;  but  his  religion  quickly  fur- 
nishes him  with  the  means  of  getting 
rid  of  it ;  his  life  is  generally  no  more 
than  a  long  series  of  errour  and  grief, 
of  sin  and  expiation :  still  more,  he 
frequently  commits,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen,  crimes  of  greater  magni- 
tude, in  order  to  expiate  the  first :  des- 
titute of  any  permanent  ideas  of  mo- 
rality, he  accustoms  himself  to  look 
upon  nothing  as  a  crime,  but  that  which 
the  ministers  and  the  interpreters  of 
his  God  forbid  him  to  commit :  he  con- 
siders as  virtues,  or  as  the  means  of 
effacing  his  transgressions,  actions  of 
the  blackest  die,  which  are  frequently 
held  out  to  him  as  agreeable  to  this 
God.  It  is  thus  we  have  seen  fanatics 
expiate,  by  the  most  atrocious  perse- 
cutions, their  adulteries,  their  infamy, 
their  unjust  wars,  and  their  usurpa- 
tions ;  and  to  wash  away  their  iniqui- 
ties, bathe  themselves  in  the  blood 
of  those  superstitious  beings,  whose 
infatuation  made  them  victims  and 
martyrs. 

An  atheist,  if  he  has  reasoned  justly, 
if  he  has  consulted  nature,  has  prin- 
ciples more  certain,  and  always  more 
humane  than  the  superstitious :  his  re- 
ligion, whether  gloomy  or  enthusiastic, 
always  conducts  the  latter  either  to 
folly  or  to  cruelty.  The  imagination 
of  an  atheist  will  never  be  intoxicated 
to  that  degree,  to  make  him  believe 
that  violence,  injustice,  persecution,  or 
assassination,  are  virtuous  or  legitimate 
actions.  We  every  day  see  that  reli- 


MOTIVES  WHICH   LEAD   TO   ATHEISM,  &c. 


319 


gion,  or  the  cause  of  Heaven,  hood- 
winks those  persons  who  are  humane, 
equitable,  and  rational  on  every  other 
occasion,  so  much  that  they  make  it  a 
duty  to  treat  with  the  utmost  barbarity 
those  men  who  step  aside  from  their 
mode  of  thinking.  A  heretic,  an  in- 
credulous being,  ceases  to  be  a  man  in 
the  eyes  of  the  superstitious.  Every 
society,  infected  with  the  venom  of  re- 
ligion, offers  us  innumerable  examples 
of  juridicial  assassinations,  which  the 
tribunals  commit  without  scruple,  and 
without  remorse ;  judges,  who  are  equi- 
table on  every  other  occasion,  are  no 
longer  so  as  soon  as  there  is  a  question 
of  theological  chimeras;  in  bathing 
themselves  in  blood,  they  believe  they 
conform  to  the  views  of  the  Divin- 
ity. Almost  every  where,  the  laws 
are  subordinate  to  superstition^  and 
make  themselves  accomplices  m  its 
fury  ;  they  legitimate  or  transform  into 
duties  those  cruelties  which  are  the 
most  contrary  to  the  rights  of  humani- 
ty.* Are  not  all  these  avengers  of  re- 
ligion blind  men,  who,  with  gayety  of 
heart,  and  through  piety  and  duty,  im- 
molate to  it  those  victims  which  it  ap- 
points ?  Are  they  not  tyrants,  who 
have  the  injustice  to  violate  thought, 
and  who  have  the  folly  to  believe  they 
can  enslave  it  1  Are  they  not  fanatics 
on  whom  the  law,  dictated  by  inhu- 
man prejudices,  impose  the  necessity 
of  becoming  ferocious  brutes'?  Are 
not  all  those  sovereigns,  who,  to  avenge 
Heaven,  torment  and  persecute  their 
subjects,  and  sacrifice  human  victims 
to  the  wickedness  of  their  anthroph- 
poagite  Gods,  men  whom  religious  zeal 
has  converted  into  tigers  ?  Are  not 
those  priests,  so  careful  of  the  soul's 
health,  who  insolently  break  into  the 
sanctuary  of  the  thoughts,  to  the  end 
that  they  may  find  in  the  opinions  of 
man  motives  for  injuring  him,  odious 
knaves  and  disturbers  of  the  mind's 
repose,  .whom  religion  honours,  and 
whom  reason  detests  ?  What  villains 


*  The  president  Grammont  relates,  with  a 
satisfaction  truly  worthy  a  cannibal,  the  par-  j 
ticulars  of  the  punishment  of  Vanini,  who  i 
was  burnt  at  Toulouse,  although  he  had  dis-  i 
avowed  the  opinions  with  which  he  was  ac-  I 
cused.  This  president  even  goes  so  far  as  to  | 
find  wicked  the  cries  and  Rowlings  which  j 
torment  wrested  from  this  unhappy  victim  of  | 
religious  cruelty.  i 


are  more  odious  in  the  eyes  of  human- 
ity than  those  infamous  inquisitors, 
who.  by  the  blindness  of  princes,  enjoy 
the  advantage  of  judging  their  own 
enemies,  and  of  committing  them  to 
the  flames  1  Nevertheless  the  super- 
stition of  the  people  makes  them  re- 
spected, and  the  favour  of  kings  over- 
whelms them  with  kindness  !  .  Do  not 
a  thousand  examples  prove  that  reli- 
gion has  every  where  produced  and 
justified  the  most  unaccountable  hor- 
rours  ?  Has  it  not  a  thousand  times 
armed  men  with  the  poniards  of  homi- 
cides, let  loose  passions  much  more 
terrible  than  those  which  it  pretended 
to  restrain,  and  broken  the  most  sacred 
bonds  of  mortals  ?  Has  it  not,  under 
the  pretexts  of  duty,  of  faith,  of  piety, 
of  zeal,  favoured  cruelty,  stupidity, 
ambition,  and  tyranny?  Has  not  the 
cause  of  God  made  murder,  perfidy, 
perjury,  rebellion,  and  regicide  legiti- 
mate ?  Have  not  those  princes,  who 
frequently  have  made  themselves  the 
avengers  of  Heaven,  the  lictors  of  re- 
ligion, hundreds  of  times  been  its  vic- 
tims 1  In  short,  has  not  the  name  of 
God  been  the  signal  for  the  most  dis- 
mal follies,  and  the  most  frightful  and 
wicked  outrages  ?  Have  not  the  altars 
of  the  Gods  every  where  swam  iu 
blood  ;  and  under  whatever  form  they 
may  have  shown  the  Divinity,  was  he 
not  always  the  cause  or  the  pretext  of 
the  most  insolent  violation  of  the  rights 
of  humanity  ?f 


t  It  is  right  to  remark  that  the  religion  of 
the  Christians  which  boasts  of  giving  to  men 
the  most  just  ideas  of  the  Divinity ;  which 
every  time  that  it  is  accused  of  being  turbu- 
lent and  sanguinary,  only  shows  its  God  as 
on  the  side  of  goodness  and  mercy;  which 
prides  itself  on  naving  taught  the  purest  sys- 
tem of  morality ;  which  pretends  to  have  es- 
tablished for  ever  concord  and  peace  amongst 
those  who  profess  it :  It  is  well,  I  say,  to  re- 
mark that  it  has  caused  more  divisions  and 
disputes,  more  political  and  civil  wars,  more 
crimes  of  every  species,  than  all  the  other  re- 
ligions of  the  world  united.  We  will  perhaps 
be  told,  that  trie-progress  of  learning  will  pre- 
vent this  superstition  from  producing  in  future 
such  dismal  effects  as  those  which  it  has  for- 
merly done ;  but  we  shall  reply,  that  fanati- 
cism will  ever  be  equally  dangerous,  or  that 
the  cause  not  being  removed,  the  effects  will 
always  be  the  same.  Thus  so  long  as  super- 
stition shall  be  held  in  consideration,  and 
shall  have  power,  there  will  be  disputes,  per- 
secutions, regicides,  disorders,  &c.,  &c.  So 
long  as  mankind  shall  be  sufficiently  irra- 


320 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


Never  will  an  atheist,  as  long  as  he 
enjoys  his  right  senses,  persuade  him- 
self that  similar  actions  can  be  justifia- 
ble ;  never  will  he  believe  that  he  who 
commits  them  can  be  an  estimable 
man ;  there  is  no  one  but  a  supersti- 
tious being,  whose  blindness  makes 
him  forget  the  most  evident  principles 
of  morality,  of  nature,  and  of  reason, 
who  can  possibly  imagine  that  the 
most  destructive  crimes  are  virtues. 
If  the  atheist  be  perverse,  he,  at  least, 
knows  that  he  does  wrong ;  neither 
God  nor  his  priests  will  be  able  to  per- 
suade him  that  he  does  right,  and  what- 
ever crimes  he  may  allow  himself  to 
commit,  he  will  never  be  capable  of 
exceeding  those  which  superstition 
causes  to  be  committed  without  scru- 
ple, by  those  whom  it  intoxicates  with 
its  fury,  or  to  whom  it  holds  forth 
crimes  themselves  as  expiations  and 
meritorious  actions. 

Thus  the  atheist,  however  wicked 
he  may  be  supposed  to  be,  will  at  most 
be  only  on  a  level  with  the  devotee, 
whose  religion  frequently  encourages 
him  to  commit  crime  which  it  trans- 
forms into  virtue.  As  to  conduct,  if  he 
be  debauched,  voluptuous,  intemper- 
ate, and  adulterous,  the  atheist  differs 
in  nothing  from  the  most  credulous 
superstitious  being,  who  frequently 
knows  how  to  connect  with  his  credu- 
lity those  vices  and  crimes  which  his 
priests  will  always  pardon,  provided 
'he  render  homage  to  their  power.  If 
he  be  in  Hindostan,  nis  bramins  will 
wash  him  in  the  Ganges  while  reciting 
a  prayer.  If  he  be  a  Jew,  upon  ma- 
king an  offering,  his  sins  will  be  effaced ; 
if  he  be  in  Japan,  he  will  be  cleansed 
by  performing  a  pilgrimage ;  if  he  be 
a  Mahometan,  he  will  be  reputed  a 
saint  for  having  visited  the  tomb  of 
his  prophet:  if  he  be  a  Christian,  he 
will  pray,  he  will  fast,  he  will  throw 

tional  to  look  upon  religion  as  a  thing  of  the 
first  importance  to  them,  the  ministers  of  re- 
ligion will  have  the  opportunity  of  confound- 
ing every  thing  on  earth  under  the  pretext  of 
serving  the  interest  of  the  Divinity,  which 
will  never  he  other  than  their  own  peculiar 
interests.  The  Christian  church  would  only 
have  one  mode  of  wiping  away  the  accusation 
which  is  brought  against  it  of  being  intolerant 
or  cruel,  and  that  would  be  solemnly  to  de- 
clare that  it  is  not  allowable  to  persecute  or  in- 
jure any  one  for  kis  opinions  ;  but  this  is 
what  its  ministers  will  never  do. 


himself  at  the  feet  of  his  priests  and 
confess  his  faults  to  them  ;  these  will 
give  him  absolution  in  the  name  of 
the  Most  High,  will  sell  him  the  in- 
dulgences from  Heaven,  but  never  will 
they  censure  him  for  those  crimes 
which  he  shall  have  committed  in-  sup- 
port of  their  several  faiths. 

We  are  constantly  told,  thai  the  in- 
decent or  criminal  conduct  of  the  priests 
and  of  their  sectaries  proves  nothing 
against  the  goodness  of  their  religious 
systems ;  but  wherefore  do  they  not 
say  the  same  thing  of  the  conduct  of 
the  atheist,  who,  as  we  have  already 
proved,  may  have  a  very  good  and  very 
true  system  of  morality,  even  while 
leading  a  dissolute  life  ?  If  it  be  ne- 
cessary to  judge  the  opinions  of  man- 
kind according  to  their  conduct,  which 
is  the  religion  that  would  bear  this 
scrutiny  ?  Let  us,  then,  examine  the 
opinions  of  the  atheist  without  approv- 
ing of  hi»  conduct;  let  us  adopt  his 
mode  of  thinking,  if  we  judge  it  to  be 
true,  useful,  and  rational ;  let  us  reject 
his  mode  of  acting,  if  we  find  it  blame>- 
able.  At  the  sight  of  a  work  filled 
with  truth,  we  do  not  embarrass  our- 
selves with  the  morals  of  the  work- 
man. Of  what  importance  is  it  to  the 
universe  whether  Newton  were  a  sober 
or  an  intemperate,  a  chaste  or  a  de- 
bauched man  ?  It  only  remains  for  us 
to  examine  whether  he  reasoned  well, 
if  his  principles  be  certain,  if  the  parts 
of  his  system  are  connected,  if  his  work 
contains  more  demonstrable  truths  than 
bold  ideas.  Let  us  judge  in  the  same 
manner  of  the  principles  of  an  atheist ; 
if  they  are  strange  and  unusual,  that 
is  a  reason  for  examining  them  more 
strictly;  if  he  has  spoken  truth,  if  he 
has  demonstrated  his  positions,  let  us 
yield  to  the  evidence  ;  if  he  he  de- 
ceived in  some  parts  let  us  distinguish 
the  true  from  the  false,  but  do  not  let 
us  fall  into  the  hackneyed  prejudice, 
which  on  account  of  one  errour  ia  the 
detail,  rejects  a  multitude  of  incontest- 
able truths.*  The  atheist,  when  he  is 
deceived,  has  unquestionably  as  much 


*  Dr.  Johnson  (the  Christian  bear  or  kog) 
says  in  his  preface  to  his  dictionary,  that 
"  where  a  man  shall  have  executed  his  task 
with  all  the  accuracy  possible,  he  will  only  be 
allowed  to  have  done  his  duty;  bat  if  he 
commit  the  slighteet  errour,  a  thousand 
enarlers  are  ready  to  point  it  out.'1 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


321 


right  to  throw  his  faults  on  the  fragility 
of  his  nature  as  the  superstitious  man. 
An  atheist  may  have  vices  and  defects, 
he  may  reason  badly  ;  but  at  least  his 
errours  will  never  have  the  consequen- 
ces of  religious  novelties  ;  they  will 
not,  like  these,  kindle  up  the  fire  of 
discord  in  the  bosom  of  nations ;  the 
atheist  will  not  justify  his  vices  and 
his  wanderings  by  religion ;  he  will 
not  pretend  to  infallibility,  like  those 
self-conceited  theologians  who  attach 
the  divine  sanction  to  their  follies,  and 
who  suppose  that  Heaven  authorizes 
those  sophisms,  those  falsehoods,  and 
those  errours,  which  they  believe  them- 
selves obliged  to  distribute  over  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

It  will  perhaps  be  said  that  the  refu- 
sal to  believe  in  the  Divinity,  will  rend 
asunder  one  of  the  most  powerful  bonds 
of  society,  in  making  the  sacredness 
of  an  oath  vanish.  I  reply,  that  per- 
jury is  by  no  means  rare  in  the  most 
religious  nations,  nor  even  amongst 
those  persons  who  make  a  boast  of 
being  the  most  thoroughly  convinced  of 
the  existence  of  the  Gods.  Diagoras, 
.  superstitious  as  he  was,  became,  it  is 
said,  an  atheist  on  seeing  that  the  Gods 
had  not  thundered  their  vengeance  on 
a  man  who  had  taken  them  as  evidence 
to  a  falsity.  Upon  this  principle,  how 
many  atheists  ought  to  be  made  among 
us?  From  the  principle  which  has 
made  an  invisible  and  an  unknown  be- 
ing the  depositary  of  man's  engage- 
ments, we  do  not  see  it  result  that  their 
engagements  and  their  most  solemn 
contracts  are  more  solid  for  this  vain 
formality.  Conductors  of  nations,  it 
is  you  above  all,  that  I  call  upon  to 
witness  my  assertions  !  This  God,  of 
whom  ye  say  ye  are  the  images,  from 
whom  ye  pretend  to  hold  the  right  of 
governing  ;  this  God,  whom  ye  so  often 
make  the  witness  of  your  oaths,  the 
guarantee  of  your  treaties ;  this  God, 
of  whom  ye  declare  ye  fear  the  judg- 
ment, has  he  much  weight  with  ye, 
whenever  there  is  a  question  of  the 
most  futile  interest  ?  Do  ye  religious- 
ly observe  those  sacred  engagements 
which  ye  have  made  with  your  allies, 
and  with  your  subjects  ?  Princes  ! 
who  to  so  much  religion  frequently 
join  so  little  probity,  I  see  the  power  of 
truth  overwhelms  ye ;  without  doubt, 
you  blush  at  this  question  ;  and  you 
No.XI.-41 


are  constrained  to  allow  that  you  equal- 
ly mock  Gods  and  men.  What  do  I 
say  ?  Does  not  religion  itself  fre- 
quently absolve  you  from  your  oaths  ? 
Does  it  not  prescribe  that  you  should 
be  perfidious,  and  violate  plighted  faith, 
above  all,  when  there  is  a  question  of 
its  sacred  interests,  does  it  not  order 
you  to  dispense  with  the  engagements 
you  have  made  with  those  whom  it 
condemns?  And  after  haying  ren- 
dered you  perfidious  and  perjured,  has 
it  not  sometimes  arrogated  the  right  of 
absolving  your  subjects  from  those 
oaths  which  bound  them  to  you  !*  If 
we  consider  things  attentively,  we  shall 
see,  that  under  such  chiefs,  religion 
and  politics  are  schools  of  perjury. 
Therefore,  knaves  of  every  condition 
never  recoil  when  it  is  necessary  to 
attest  the  name  of  God  to  the  most 
manifest  frauds,  and  for  the  vilest  in- 
terests. What  end  then  do  oaths 
answer?  They  are  snares  in  which 
simplicity  alone  can  suffer  itself  to  be 
caught ;  oaths  are  every  where  vain 
formalities,  they  impose  nothing  on 
villains,  nor  do  they  add  any  thing  to 
the  engagements  of  honest  men,  who, 
without  oaths,  would  not  have  had  the 
temerity  to  violate  them.  A  perfidious 
and  perjured  superstitious  being,  un- 
questionably has  not  any  advantage 
over  an  atheist  who  should  fail  in  his 
promises  ;  neither  the  one  nor  the  other 
any  longer  deserves  the  confidence  of 
their  fellow-citizens,  nor  the  esteem 
of  good  men :  if  one  does  not  respect 
his  God  in  Avhom  he  believes,  the  other 
neither  respects  his  reason,  his  repu- 
tation, nor  public  opinion,  in  which  all 
rational  men  cannot  refuse  to  believe.f 


*  It  is  a  maxim  constantly  received  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  mat  is  to  say,  in 
that  sect  of  Christianity,  the  most  si  ^ersti- 
tious  and  the  most  numerous,  that  no  fiithis 
to  be  held  with  heretics.  The  general  Council 
of  Constance  decided  thus,  when,  notwith- 
standing the  emperor's  passport,  it  decreed 
John  Hus,  and  Jerome  Prague  to  be  burnt. 
The  Roman  Pontiff  has,  it  is  well  known,  the 
right  of  relieving  his  secretaries  from  their 
oaths,  and  annulling  their  vows;  the  same 
Pontiff  has  frequently  arrogated  to  himself 
the  right  of  deposing  kings,  and  of  absolving 
their  subjects  from  their  oaths  of  fidelity. 

It  is  very  extraordinary  that  oaths  should 
be  prescribed  by  the  laws  of  those  nations  who 
profess  the  Christian  religion,  whilst  Christ 
has  expressly  prohibited  the  use  of  them. 

t  "  An  oath,"  says  Hobbes,  "  adds  nothing 


322 


MOTIVES   WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


It  has  been  frequently  asked,  if  there 
ever  was  a  nation  that  had  no  idea  of 
the  Divinity,  and  if  a  people  uniformly 
composed  of  atheists  would  be  able  to 
subsist  ?  Whatever  some  speculators 
may  say,  it  does  not  appear  likely  that 
there  ever  has  been  upon  our  globe  a 
numerous  people,  who  have  not  had  an 
idea  of  some  invisible  power,  to  whom 
they  have  shown  marks  of  respect  and 
submission.*  Man,  inasmuch  as  he  is 
a  fearful  and  ignorant  animal,  neces- 
sarily becomes  superstitious  in  his  mis- 
fortunes: either  he  forms  a  God  for 
himself,  or  he  admits  the  God  which 
others  are  disposed  to  give  him.  It 
does  not  then  appear  that  we  can  ra- 
tionally suppose  there  may  have  been, 
or  that  there  actually  is,  a  people  upon 
the  earth  a  total  stranger  to  the  notion 
of  some  Divinity.  One  will  show  us 
the  sun,  or  the  moon  and  stars  ;  the 
other  will  show  us  the  sea,  the  lakes, 
the  rivers,  which  furnish  him  his  sub- 
sistence ;  the  trees  which  afford  him 
an  asylum  against  the  inclemency  of 
the  air ;  another  will  show  us  a  rock 
of  an  odd  form,  a  high  mountain  or 
volcano  that  frequently  astonishes  him ; 
another  will  present  you  with  his  croc- 
odile, whose  malignity  he  fears ;  his 
dangerous  serpent,  the  reptile  to  which 
he  attributes  his  good  or  his  bad  for- 
tune. In  short,  each  man  will  make 
you  see  his  phantasm,  his  domestic  or 
tutelary  God  with  respect. 

But  from  the  existence  of  his  Gods, 
the  savage  does  not  draw  the  same  in- 
ductions as  the  civilized  and  polished 

to  an  obligation,  it  only  augments,  in  the  im- 
agination of  him  who  swears,  the  fear  of  vio- 
lating an  engagement,  which  he  would  have 
been  obliged  to  keep  ever  without  any  oath." 

*  It  has  been  sometimes  believed  that  the 
Chinese  were  atheists ;  but  this  errour  is  due 
to  the  Christian  Missionaries,  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  treat  all  those  as  atheists  who  do 
not  hold  opinions  similar  to  their  own  upon 
the  Divinity.  It  always  appears  that  the 
Chinese  are  a  people  extremely  superstitious, 
but  that  they  are  governed  by  chiefs  who  are 
not  so,  without,  however,  their  being  atheists 
for  that  reason.  If  the  empire  of  China  be 
as  flourishing  as  it  is  said  to  be,  it  at  least  fur- 
nishes a  very  forcible  proof  that  those  who 
govern,  have  no  occasion  "to  be  superstitious 
in  order  to  govern  with  propriety,  a  people 
who  is  so. 

It  is  pretended  that  the  Greenlanders  have 
no  idea  of  the  Divinity.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  it  of  a  nation  BO  savage  and 
•o  ill-treated  bv  .Nature. 


man ;  the  savage  does  not  believe  it  a 
duty  to  reason  much  upon  his  Divini- 
ties ;  he  does  not  imagine  that  they 
ought  to  influence  his  morals,  nor  en- 
tirely occupy  his  thoughts:  content 
with  a  gross,  simple,  and  exterior  wor- 
ship, he  does  not  believe  that  these  in- 
visible powers  trouble  themselves  with 
his  conduct  towards  his  fellow-crea- 
tures ;  in  short,  he  does  not  connect  his 
morality  with  his  religion.  This  mo- 
rality is  coarse,  as  must  be  that  of  all 
ignorant  people  ;  it  is  proportioned  to 
his  wants,  which  are  few ;  it  is  fre- 
quently irrational,  because  it  is  the 
fruit  of  ignorance,  of  inexperience,  and 
of  the  passions  of  men,  but  slightly 
restrained  in  their  infancy.  It  is  only 
in  numerous,  stationary,  and  civilized 
societies,  where  man's  Avants  multiply 
themselves,  and  his  interests  clash, 
that  he  is  obliged  to  have  recourse  to 
governments,  to  laws,  and  to  public 
worship,  in  order  to  maintain  concord : 
it  is  then  that  men  approximating,  rea- 
son and  combine  their  ideas,  refine  and 
subtilize  their  notions  ;  it  is  then  that 
those  who  govern  them,  avail  them- 
selves of  the  fear  of  invisible  powers  . 
to  keep  them  within  bounds,  to  render 
them  docile,  and  oblige  them  to  obey 
and  live  peaceably.  It  is  thus  that  by 
degrees,  morals  and  politics  find  them- 
selves connected  with  religious  sys- 
tems. The  chiefs  of  nations,  frequent- 
ly superstitious  themselves,  but  little 
enlightened  upon  their  own  interestsr 
but  little  versed  in  sound  morality,  and 
but  little  instructed  in  the  true  motive- 
powers  of  the  human  heart,  believe 
that  they  have  done  every  thing  for 
their  own  authority  as  well  as  for  the 
happiness  and  repose  of  society,  in 
rendering  their  subjects  superstitious, 
in  menacing  them  with  the  wrath  of 
their  invisible  phantoms,  in  treating 
them  like  children,  who  are  appeased 
with  fables  and  chimeras.  By  the  as- 
sistance of  these  marvellous  inventions, 
to  which  even  the  chiefs  and  the  con- 
ductors of  nations  are  themselves  fre- 
quently the  dupes,  and  which  are  trans- 
mitted from  race  to  race  in  their  duties; 
sovereigns  are  dispensed  from  the 
trouble  of  instructing  themselves ;  they 
neglect  the  laws,  they  enervate  them- 
selves in  ease  and  sloth,  they  follow 
nothing  but  the  caprice,  they  repose  in 
their  deities  the  care  of  restraining  their 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


323 


subjects  ;  they  confide  the  instruction 
of  the  people  to  priests,  who  are  com- 
missioned to  render  them  good,  sub- 
missive, and  devout,  and  to  teach  them, 
in  an  early  age,  to  tremble  under  the 
yoke  of  the  visible  and  invisible  Gods. 

It  is  thus  that  nations  are  kept  by 
their  tutors  in  a  perpetual  state  of  in- 
fancy, and  are  only  restrained  by  vain 
chimeras.  It  is  thus  that  politics,  ju- 
risprudence, education,  and  morality, 
are  every  where  infected  with  super- 
stition. It  is  thus  that  men  no  longer 
know  any  duties  but  those  of  religion ; 
it  is  thus  that  the  idea  of  virtue  is 
falsely  associated  with  that  of  those 
imaginary  powers  to  which  imposture 
gave  that  language  which  is  most  con- 
ducive to  its  own  immediate  interests. 
It  is  thus  that  men  are  persuaded  that 
without  a  God  there  no  longer  exists 
any  morality  for  them.  It  is  thus  that 
princes  and  subjects,  equally  blind  to 
their  true  interests,  to  the  duties  of  na- 
ture, and  to  their  reciprocal  rights,  have 
habituated  themselves  to  consider  re- 
ligion as  necessary  to  morals,  as  indis- 
pensably requisite  to  govern  men,  and 
as  the  most  certain  means  of  arriving 
at  power  and  happiness. 

It  is  from  these  dispositions,  of  which 
we  have  so  frequently  demonstrated 
the  falsity,  that  so  many  persons,  other- 
wise extremely  enlightened,  look  upon 
it  as  an  impossibility,  that  a  society  of 
atheists  could  subsist  for  any  length 
of  time.  It  does  not  admit  a  question, 
that  a  numerous  society  who  should 
neither  have  religion,  morality,  govern- 
ment, laws,  education,  nor  principles, 
could  not  maintain  itself,  and  that  it 
would  simply  draw  together  beings 
disposed  to  injure  each  other,  or  chil- 
dren who  would  only  blindly  follow  the 
most  fatal  impulsions  ;  but  then,  with 
all  the  religion  in  the  world,  are  not  hu- 
man societies  very  nearly  in  this  state? 
Are  not  the  sovereigns  of  almost  every 
country  in  a  continual  state  of  warfare 
with  their  subjects  ?  Are  not  these 
subjects,  in  despite  of  religion  and  the 
terrible  notions  which  it  gives  them  of 
the  Divinity,  unceasingly  occupied  in 
reciprocally  injuring  each  other,  and 
rendering  themselves  mutually  unhap- 
py ?  Does  not  religion  itself,  with  its 
supernatural  notions,  unremittingly  flat- 
ter the  vanity  and  the  passions  of  sove- 
reigns, and  throw  oil  into  the  tire  of  dis- 


cord between  those  citizens  who  are 
divided  in  opinion?  Could  those  in- 
fernal powers,  who  are  supposed  to 
be  ever  upon  the  watch  to  injure  the 
human  species,  be  capable  of  producing 
greater  evils  upon  the  earth  than  spring 
from  fanaticism,  and  the  fury  to  which 
theology  gives  birth  ?  In  short,  could 
atheists,  assembled  together  in  society, 
however  irrational  they  may  be  sup- 
posed to  be,  conduct  themselves  to- 
wards each  other  in  a  more  criminal 
manner,  than  do  these  superstitious 
beings,  filled  with  real  vices  and  ex- 
travagant chimeras,  who  have,  during 
so  many  ages,  done  nothing  more  than 
destroy  themselves  and  cut  each  other's 
throats,  without  reason,  and  without 
pity  ?  It  cannot  be  pretended  they 
would  ;  on  the  contrary,  we  boldly  as- 
sert, that  a  society  of  atheists,  destitute 
of  all  religion,  governed  by  wholesome 
laws,  formed  by  a  good  education,  in- 
vited to  virtue  by  recompenses,  deterred 
from  crime  by  equitable  punishments, 
and  disentangled  from  illusions,  false- 
hood, and  chimeras,  would  be  infinitely 
more  honest  and  more  virtuous  than 
those  religious  societies,  in  which  every 
thing  conspires  to  intoxicate  the  mind 
and  to  corrupt  the  heart. 

When  we  shall  be  disposed  usefully 
to  occupy  ourselves  with  the  happiness 
of  men,  it  is  with  the  Gods  in  heaven 
that  the  reform  must  commence  ;  it  is 
by  abstracting  these  imaginary  beings, 
destined  to  affright  people  who  are  ig- 
norant and  in  a  state  of  infancy,  that 
we  shall  be  able  to  promise  ourselves  to 
conduct  man  to  a  state  of  maturity.  It 
cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  there  is  no 
morality  without  consulting  the  nature 
of  man  and  his  true  relations  with  the 
beings  of  his  species  ;  no  fixed  princi- 
ples for  man's  conduct  in  regulating 
it  upon  unjust,  capricious,  and  wicked 
Gods  ;  no  sound  politics,  without  con- 
sulting the  nature  of  man,  living  in 
society  to  satisfy  his  wants,  and  to 
assure  his  happiness  and  its  enjoy- 
ment. No  wise  government  can  found 
itself  upon  a  despotic  God,  he  will  al- 
ways make  tyrants  of  his  representa- 
tives. No  laws  will  be  good  without 
consulting  the  nature  and  the  end  ot 
society.  No  jurisprudence  can  be  ad- 
vantageous for  nations,  if  it  is  regu- 
lated upon  the  caprice  and  passions  of 
deified  tyrants.  No  education  will  be 


324 


MOTIVES   WHICH   LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


rational,  unless  it  be  founded  upon 
reason,  and  not  upon  chimeras  and 
prejudices.  In  short  there  is  no  virtue, 
no  probity,  no  talents,  under  corrupt 
masters,  and  under  the  conduct  of  those 
priests  who  render  men  the  enemies 
of  themselves  and  of  others,  and  who 
seek  to  stifle  in  them  the  germs  of 
reason,  science,  and  courage. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  asked,  if  we  can 
reasonably  flatter  ourselves  with  ever 
arriving  at  the  point  of  making  a  peo- 
ple entirely  forget  their  religious  opin- 
ions, or  the  ideas  which  they  have  of 
the  Divinity  ?  I  reply,  that  the  thing 
appears  utterly  impossible,  and  that 
this  is  not  the  end  which  we  can  pro- 
pose to  ourselves.  The  idea  of  a  God, 
inculcated  from  the  /nost  tender  in- 
fancy, does  not  appear  of  a  nature  to 
admit  eradication  from  the  mind  of  the 
majority  of  mankind :  it  would,  per- 
haps, be  as  difficult  to  give  it  to  those 
persons,  who,  arrived  at  a  certain  age, 
should  never  have  heard  it  spoken  of, 
as  to  banish  it  from  the  minds  of  those 
who  have  been  imbued  with  it  from 
their  earliest  infancy.  Thus  it  cannot 
be  supposed  that  it  is  possible  to  make 
a  whole  nation  pass  from  the  abyss  of 
superstition,  that  is  to  say,  from  the 
bosom  of  ignorance  and  of  delirium, 
into  absolute  atheism,  which  supposes 
reflection,  study,  knowledge,  a  long 
series  of  experience,  the  habit  of  con- 
templating nature,  the  science  of  the 
causes  of  its  various  phenomena,  of  its 
combinations,  of  its  laws,  of  the  beings 
who  compose  it,  and  of  their  different 
properties.  In  order  to  be  an  atheist, 
or  to  be  assured  of  the  powers  of  na- 
ture, it  is  necessary  to  have  meditated 
profoundly  ;  a  superficial  glance  of  the 
eye  will  not  make  us  acquainted  with 
her  powers  ;  eyes  but  little  exercised, 
will  unceasingly  be  deceived  ;  the  ig- 
norance of  actual  causes  will  make  us 
suppose  those  which  are  imaginary  ; 
and  ignorance  will  thus  reconduct  the 
natural  philosopher  himself  to  the  feet 
of  a  phantom,  in  which  his  limited 
vision,  or  his  idleness  will  make  him 
believe  he  shall  find  the  solution  of 
every  difficulty. 

Atheism,  as  well  as  philosophy  and 
all  profound  and  abstract  sciences, 
then,  is  not  calculated  for  the  unin- 
formed, neither  is  it  suitable  for  the 
majority  of  mankind.  There  are  in 


all  populous  and  civilized  nations,  per- 
sons whose  circumstances  enable  them 
to  meditate,  to  make  researches,  and 
useful  discoveries,  which,  sooner  or 
later,  finish  by  extending  themselves, 
and  becoming  beneficial  when  they 
have  been  judged  advantageous  and 
true.  The  geometrician,  the  mechanic, 
the  chymist,  the  physician,  the  civilian, 
the  artisan  himself,  labour  in  their 
closets  or  in  their  workshops,  seeking 
the  means  to  serve  society  each  in  his 
sphere  ;  nevertheless,  not  one  of  these 
sciences  or  professions  are  known  to 
the  uninitiated,  who,  however,  do  not 
fail  in  the  long  run  to  profit  by,  and 
reap  the  advantages  of  those  labours 
of  which  they  themselves  have  no  idea. 
It  is  for  the  mariner  that  the  astron- 
omer labours :  it  is  for  him  that  the 
geometrician  and  the  mechanic  calcu- 
late :  it  is  for  the  mason  and  the  labourer 
that  the  skilful  architect  draws  learned 
designs.  Whatever  may  be  the  pre- 
tended utility  of  religious  opinions,  the 
profound  and  subtile  theologian  cannot 
boast  of  labouring,  of  writing,  or  of 
disputing  for  the  advantage  of  the  peo- 
ple, whom,  however,  they  contrive  to 
tax  exorbitantly  for  those  systems  and 
those  mysteries  which  they  will  never 
understand,  and  which  never  can  at 
any  time  be  of  any  utility  whatever  to 
them. 

It  is  not,  then,  for  the  multitude  that 
a  philosopher  ought  to  propose  to  him- 
self to  write  or  to  meditate.  The  prin- 
ciples of  atheism,  or  the  System  of 
Nature,  are  not  even  calculated,  as 
we  have  shown,  for  a  great  number  of 
persons,  extremely  enlightened  on  other 
points,  but  frequently  too  much  prepos- 
sessed in  favour  of  received  prejudices. 
It  is  extremely  rare  to  find  men  who, 
to  an  enlarged  mind,  extensive  know- 
ledge, and  great  talents,  join  either 
a  well-regulated  imagination,  or  the 
courage  necessary  to  combat  success- 
fully those  habitual  chimeras  with 
which  the  brain  has  been  long  inocu- 
lated. A  secret  and  invincible  incli- 
nation frequently  reconducts,  in  despite 
of  all  reasoning,  the  most  solid  and 
the  best-fortified  minds  to  those  preju- 
dices which  they  see  generally  estab- 
lished, and  of  which  they  have  them- 
selves drank  copiously  from  their  most 
tender  infancy.  Nevertheless,  by  de- 
grees, those  principles  which  then  ap- 


MOTIVES  WHICH   LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


325 


pear  strange  or  revolting,  when  they 
have  truth  on  their  side,  insinuate 
themselves  into  the  mind,  become  fa- 
miliar, extend  themselves  far  and  wide, 
and  produce  the  most  advantageous 
effects  over  every  society  :  in  time,  men 
familiarize  themselves  with  those  ideas 
which  originally  they  had  looked  upon 
as  absurd  and  irrational ;  at  least,  they 
cease  to  consider  those  as  odious  who 
profess  opinions  upon  things  of  which 
experience  makes  it  evident,  they  may 
be  permitted  to  have  doubts  without 
danger  to  the  public. 

The  diffusion  of  ideas,  then,  amongst 
men,  is  not  to  be  dreaded.  Are  they 
useful?  By  degrees  they  will  fructify. 
The  man  who  writes,  must  neither  fix 
his  eyes  upon  the  time  in  which  he 
lives,  nor  upon  his  actual  fellow-citi- 
zens, nor  upon  the  country  which  he 
inhabits.  He  must  speak  to  the  hu- 
man species,  he  must  foresee  future 
generations ;  in  vain  will  he  expect 
the  applauses  of  his  contemporaries  ; 
in  vain  shall  he  flatter  himself  with  see- 
ing his  precocious  principles  received 
kindly  by  prejudiced  minds  ;  if  he  has 
told  truth,  the  ages  that  shall  follow 
will  render  justice  to  his  efforts;  mean- 
time, let  him  content  himself  with  the 
idea  of  having  done  well,  or  with  the 
secret  suffrages  of  those  few  friends  to 
truth  who  inhabit  the  earth.  It  is  after 
his  death  that  the  writer  of  truth  tri- 
umphs ;  it  is  then  that  the  stings  of 
hatred  and  the  shafts  of  envy,  either 
exhausted  or  blunted,  give  place  to 
truth,  which  being  eternal,  must  sur- 
vive all  the  errours  of  the  earth.* 

Besides,  we  shall  say  with  Hobbes, 
that  "  We  cannot  do  men  any  harm 
by  proposing  our  ideas  to  them ;  the 

*  It  is  a  problem  with  a  great  many  people, 
if  truth  may  not  be  injurious.  The  best  in- 
tentioned  persons  arc  themselves  frequently 
in  great  doubt  upon  this  important  point. 
Truth  never  injures  any  but  those  who  de- 
ceive men :  these  have  the  greatest  interest 
in  being  undeceived.  Truth  may  be  injurious 
to  him  who  announces  it,  but  no  truth  can 
possibly  injure  the  human  species,  and  never 
can  it  be  too  clearly  announced  to  beings  al- 
ways little  disposed  to  listen  to,  or  compre- 
hend it.  If  all  those  who  write  to  announce 
important  truths,  which  are  always  consider- 
ed as  the  most  dangerous,  were  sufficiently 
wanned  with  the  public  welfare  to  speak  free- 
ly, even  at  the  risk  of  displeasing  their  readers, 
the  human  race  would  be  much  more  en- 
lightened and  much  happier  than  it  is.  To 


worst  mode  is  to  leave  them  in  doubt 
and  dispute  ;  indeed,  are  they  not  so 
already  ?"  If  an  author  who  writes 
be  deceived,  it  is  because  he  may  have 
reasoned  badly.  Has  he  laid  down 
false  principles  ?  It  remains  to  ex- 
amine them.  Is  his  system  false  and 
ridiculous?  It  will  serve  to  make 
truth  appear  in  its  greatest  splendour  ; 
his  work  will  fall  into  contempt ;  and 
the  writer,  if  he  be  witness  to  its 
fall,  will  be  sufficiently  punished  for 
his  temerity ;  if  he  be  dead,  the  liv- 


ing cannot  disturb  his  ashes. 


No  man 


writes  with  a  design  to  injure  his  fel- 
low-creatures ;  he  always  proposes  to 
himself  to  merit  their  suffrages,  either 
by  amusing  them,  by  exciting  their 
curiosity,  or  by  communicating  to  them 
discoveries  which  he  believes  useful. 
No  work  can  be  dangerous  ;  above  all, 
if  it  contains  truth.  It  would  not  be 
so,  even  if  it  contained  principles  evi- 
dently contrary  to  experience  and  good 
sense.  Indeed,  what  would  result,  from 
a  work  that  should  now  tell  us  the  sun 
is  not  luminous ;  that  parricide  is  legit- 
imate ;  that  robbery  is  allowable ;  that 
adultery  is  not  a  crime  ?  The  smallest 
reflection  would  make  us  feel  the  falsity 
of  these  principles,  and  the  whole  hu- 
man race  would  protest  against  them. 
Men  would  laugh  at  the  folly  of  the 
author,  and  presently  his  book  and  his 
name  would  be  known  only  by  their 
ridiculous  extravagancies.  There  is 
nothing  but  religious  follies  that  are 
pernicious  to  mortals  ;  and  wherefore  1 
It  is  because  authority  always  pretends 
to  establish  them  by  violence,  to  make 
them  pass  for  virtues,  and  rigorously 
punishes  those  who  should  be  disposed 
to  laugh  at  or  to  examine  them.  If 
men  were  more  rational,  they  would 

write  in  ambiguous  words,  is  frequently  to 
write  to  nobody.  The  human  mind  is  idle, 
we  must  spare  it  as  much  as  possible  the 
trouble  and  embarrassment  of  reflecting. 
What  time  and  study  does  it  not  require  at 
the  present  day  to  unravel  the  ambiguous 
oracles  of  the  ancient  philosophers,  whose 
true  sentiments  are  almost  entirely  lost  to  us ! 
If  truth  be  useful  to  men,  it  is  an  injustice 
to  deprive  them  of  it ;  if  truth  ought  to  be 
admitted,  we  must  admit  its  consequences, 
which  also  are  truths.  Men,  for  the  most 
part,  are  fond  of  truth,  but  its  consequences 
inspire  them  with  so  much  fear,  that  fre- 
quently they  prefer  remaining  in  errour,  of 
which  habit  prevents  them  from  feeling  the 
deplorable  effects. 


326 


MOTIVES   WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM, &c. 


consider  religious  opinions  and  theolo- 
gical systems  with  the  same  eyes  as 
systems  of  natural  philosophy,  or  prob- 
lems in  geometry  :  these  latter  never 
disturb  the  repose  of  society,  although 
they  sometimes  excite  very  warm  dis- 
putes amongst  some  of  the  learned. 
Theological  quarrels  would  never  be 
attended  with  any  evil  consequences, 
if  men  could  arrive  at  the  desirable 
point  of  making  those  who  have  power 
in  their  hands,  feel  that  they  ought  not 
to  have  any  other  sensations  than  those 
of  indifference  and  contempt,  for  the 
disputes  of  persons  who  do  not  them- 
selves understand  the  marvellous  ques- 
tions upon  which  they  never  cease  dis- 
puting. 

It  is  at  least,  this  indifference,  so 
just,  so  rational,  so  advantageous  for 
states,  that  sound  philosophy  proposes 
to  introduce  by  degrees  upon  the  earth. 
Would  not  the  human  species  be  much 
happier,  if  the  sovereigns  of  the  world, 
occupied  with  the  welfare  of  their  sub- 
jects, and  leaving  to  superstition  its 
futile  contests,  submitted  religion  to 
politics ;  obliged  its  haughty  ministers 
to  become  citizens ;  and  carefully  pre- 
vented their  quarrels  from  interrupting 
the  public  tranquillity  ?  What  advan- 
tages would  there  not  result  to  science, 
to  the  progress  of  the  human  mind,  to 
the  perfectionating  of  morality,  of  juris- 
prudence, of  legislation,  of  education, 
from  the  liberty  of  thought?  At  pres- 
ent genius  every  where  finds  shackles ; 
religion  continually  opposes  itself  to 
its  course :  man,  enveloped  with  ban- 
dages, does  not  enjoy  any  one  of  his 
faculties ;  his  mind  itself  is  tortured, 
and  appears  continually  wrapped  up 
in  the  swaddling  clothes  of  infancy. 
The  civil  power,  leagued  with  the  spi- 
ritual power,  appears  only  disposed  to 
rule  over  brutalized  slaves,  confined 
in  an  obscure  prison,  where  they  make 
each  other  reciprocally  feel  the  effects 
of  their  mutual  ill-humour.  Sove- 
reigns detest  liberty  of  thought,  be- 
cause they  fear  truth ;  this  truth  ap- 
pears formidable  to  them,  because  it 
would  condemn  their  excesses;  these 
excesses  are  dear  to  them,  because  they 
know  no  more  than  their  subjects  their 
true  interests,  which  ought  to  blend 
themselves  into  one. 

Let  not  the  courage  of  the  philoso- 
pher, however,  be  abated  by  so  many 


united  obstacles,  which  would  appear 
to  exclude  for  ever  truth  from  its  do- 
minion ;  reason  from  the  mind  of  man ; 
and  nature  from  its  rights.  The  thou- 
sandth part  of  those  cares  which  are 
bestowed  to  infect  the  human  mind, 
would  be  sufficient  to  make  it  Avhole. 
Do  not  then  let  us  despair,  do  not  let 
us  do  man  the  injury  to  believe  that 
truth  is  not  made  for  him;  his  mind 
seeks  after  it  incessantly ;  his  heart  de- 
sires it ;  his  happiness  demands  it  loud- 
ly ;  he  fears  it  or  mistakes  it,  only  be- 
cause religion,  which  has  overthrown 
all  his  ideas,  perpetually  keeps  the 
bandeau  of  delusion  over  his  eyes,  and 
strives  to  render  him  a  total  stranger 
to  virtue. 

Maugre  the  prodigious  exertions  that 
are  made  to  drive  truth,  reason,  and 
science,  from  the  earth ;  time,  assisted 
by  the  progressive  knowledge  of  ages, 
may  be  able  one  day  to  enlighten  even 
those  princes  who  are  so  outrageous 
against  truth,  suqh  enemies  to  justice, 
and  to  the  liberty  of  mankind.  Des- 
tiny will,  perhaps,  one  day  conduct 
them  to  the  throne  of  some  enlight- 
ened, equitable,  courageous,  and  be- 
nevolent sovereign,  who  acknowledg- 
ing the  true  source  of  human  miseries, 
shall  apply  to  them  the  remedies  with 
which  wisdom  has  furnished  him :  per- 
haps he  will  feel  that  those  Gods,  from 
whom  he  pretends  he  derives  his  power, 
are  the  true  scourges  of  his  people ; 
that  the  ministers  of  these  Gods  are 
his  own  enemies  and  rivals ;  that  the 
religion  which  he  looks  upon  as  the 
support  of  his  power,  does,  in  fact, 
only  weaken  and  shake  it;  that  super- 
stitious morality  is  false,  and  serves 
only  to  pervert  his  subjects,  and  to 
give  them  the  vices  of  slaves,  in  lieu 
of  the  virtues  of  the  citizen  ;  in  short, 
he  will  see  in  religious  errours,  the 
fruitful  source  of  the  sorrows  of  the 
human  species ;  he  will  feel  that  they 
are  incompatible  Avith  every  equitable 
administration. 

Until  this  desirable  epoch  for  hu- 
manity, the  principles  of  naturalism 
will  be  adopted  only  by  a  small  num- 
ber of  thinkers,  they  cannot  natter 
themselves  with  having  a  great  many 
approvers  or  proselytes;  on  the  con- 
trary, they  will  find  ardent  adversaries, 
or  contemners,  even  in  those  persons 
who,  upon  every  other  subject,  dis- 


MOTIVES   WHICH  LEAD   TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


327 


cover  the  most  acute  minds  and  di 
play  the  greatest  knowledge.  Thos 
men  who  have  the  greatest  share  o 
talents,  as  we  have  already  observed 
cannot  always  resolve  to  divorce  them 
selves  completely  from  their  religiou 
ideas ;  imagination,  so  necessary  t< 
splendid  talents,  frequently  forms  in 
them  an  insurmountable  obstacle  to 
the  total  extinction  of  prejudice ;  this 
depends  much  more  on  the  judgmen 
than  on  the  mind.  To  this  disposi- 
tion, already  so  prompt  to  form  illu- 
sions for  them,  is  also  joined  the 
power  of  habit ;  to  a  great  many  men 
it  would  be  wresting  from  them  a  por- 
tion of  themselves  to  take  away  their 
ideas  of  God  ;  it  would  be  depriving 
them  of  an  accustomed  aliment ;  it 
would  be  plunging  them  into  a  vacuum, 
and  obliging  their  distempered  minds 
to  perish  for  want  of  exercise.* 

Let  us  not,  then,  be  surprised  if  very 
great  and  learned  men  obstinately  shut 
their  eyes,  or  run  counter  to  their  ordi- 
nary sagacity,  every  time  there  is  a 
question  respecting  an  object  which 
they  have  not  the  courage  to  examine 
with  that  attention  which  they  have 
lent  to  many  others.  Lord  Chancel- 
lor Bacon  pretends  that  "  a  little  phi- 
losophy disposes  men  to  atheism,  but 
that  great  depth  reconducts  them  to 
religion."  If  we  analyze  this  propo- 
sition, we  shall  find  it  to  signify,  that 
very  moderate  and  indifferent  thinkers 
are  quickly  enabled  to  perceive  the 
gross  absurdities  of  religion,  but  that 
little  accustomed  to  meditate,  or  desti- 
tute of  those  certain  principles  which 
could  serve  to  guide  them,  their  imagi- 
nation presently  replaces  them  in  the 
theological  labyrinth,  from  whence  rea- 
son, too  weak,  appeared  disposed  to 
withdraw  them.  Timid  souls  fear  even 
to  take  courage  again ;  minds  accus- 
tomed to  be  satisfied  with  theological 


*  Menage  has  remarked,  that  history  speaks 
of  very  few  incredulous  women,  or  female 
atheists.  This  is  not  surprising,  their  organ- 
ization renders  them  fearful,  the  nervous  sys- 
tem undergoes  periodical  variations  in  them, 
and  the  education  which  they  receive,  dis- 
poses them  to  credulity.  Those  amongst 
them  who  have  a  sound  constitution,  and 
imagination,  have  occasion  for  chimeras  suit- 
able to  occupy  their  idleness ;  above  all,  when 
the  world  abandons  them,  devotion  and  its 
ceremonies  then  become  a  business  or  an 
amusement  for  them. 


solutions,  no  longer  see  in  nature  any 
thing  but  an  inexplicable  enigma,  an 
abyss  which  it  is  impossible  to  fathom. 
Habituated  to  fix  their  eyes  upon  an 
ideal  and  mathematical  point,  which 
they  have  made  the  centre  of  every 
thing,  the  universe  becomes  a  jumble 
to  them,  whenever  they  lose  sight  of 
it ;  and  in  the  confusion  in  which  they 
find  themselves  involved,  they  rather 
prefer  returning  to  the  prejudices  of 
their  infancy,  which  appear  to  explain 
every  thing,  than  to  float  in  the  vacuum, 
or  quit  that  foundation  which  they  judge 
to  be  immoveable.  Thus,  the  proposi- 
tion of  Bacon,  appears  to  indicate  no- 
thing, except  it  be,  that  the  most  ex- 
perienced persons  cannot  defend  them- 
selves against  the  illusions  of  their 
imagination,  the  impetuosity  of  which 
resists  the  strongest  reasoning. 

Nevertheless,  a  deliberate  study  of 
nature  is  sufficient  to  undeceive  every 
man  who  will  calmly  consider  things  : 
tie  will  see  that  every  thing  in   the 
world  is  connected  by  links  invisible 
to  the  superficial  and  to  the  too  im- 
jetuous  observer,  but  extremely  intel- 
igible  to  him  who  views  things  with 
coolness.     He  will  find  that  the  most 
unusual,  and  the  most  marvellous,  as 
well  as  the  most  trifling  and  ordinary 
;ffects  are  equally  inexplicable ;  but  that 
hey  must  flow  from  natural  causes, 
and   that   supernatural  causes,   under 
whatever  name  they  may  be  designa- 
ed,  with  whatever  qualities  they  may 
e  decorated,  will  do  no  more  than  in- 
crease difficulties,  and  make  chimeras 
nultiply.      The  simplest  observation 
vill  incontestably  prove  to  him  that 
every  thing  is  necessary,  that  all  the 
effects  which  he  perceives  are  mate- 
ial,  and  can  only  originate  in  causes 
if  the   same   nature,  when   even   he 
hould  not  be  able,  by  the  assistance 
)f  the  senses,  to  recur  to  these  causes. 
Thus  his  mind  will  every  where  show 
lira  nothing  but  matter  acting  some- 
imes  in  a  manner  which  his  organs 

mit  him  to  follow,  and  sometimes 
n  a  mode  imperceptible  to  him :  he 
vill  see  that  all  beings  follow  constant 
nd  invariable  laws,  by  which  all  com- 
inations  form  and  destroy  themselves, 
11  forms  change,  whilst  the  great  whole 
ver  remains  the  same.  Then  cured 
f  the  notions  with  which  he  was  im- 
ued.  undeceived  in  those  erroneous 


328 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


ideas,  which,  from  habit,  he  attached 
to  imaginary  beings,  he  will  cheerfully 
consent  to  be  ignorant  of  that  which 
his  organs  cannot  compass  ;  he  will 
know  that  obscure  terms,  devoid  of 
sense,  are  not  calculated  to  explain 
difficulties  ;  and  guided  by  reason,  he 
will  throw  aside  all  hypotheses  of  the 
imagination,  to  attach  himself  to  those 
realities  which  are  confirmed  by  ex- 
perience. 

The  greater  number  of  those  who 
study  nature,  frequently  do  not  con- 
sider, that  with  the  eyes  of  prejudice 
they  will  never  discover  more  than  that 
which  they  have  resolved  beforehand 
to  find  ;  as  soon  as  they  perceive  facts 
contrary  to  their  own  ideas,  they  quickly 
turn  aside,  and  believe  their  eyes  have 
deceived  them ;  or  else,  if  they  turn 
back,  it  is  in  hopes  to  be  able  to  recon- 
cile them  with  those  notions  with  which 
their  mind  is  imbued.  It  is  thus  we 
find  enthusiastic  philosophers,  whose 
prepossessions  show  them,  even  in 
those  things  which  most  openly  con- 
tradict their  opinions,  incontestable 
proofs  of  those  systems  with  which 
they  are  preoccupied.  Hence  those 
pretended  demonstrations  of  the  ex- 
istence of  a  good  God,  which  are  drawn 
from  final  causes,  from  the  order  of 
nature,  from  his  kindness  to  man,  &c., 
&c.  Do  the  same  enthusiasts  perceive 
disorder,  calamities,  and  revolutions  ? 
They  induct  new  proofs  from  the  wis- 
dom, the  intelligence,  the  bounty  of 
their  God,  whilst  all  these  things  as 
visibly  contradict  these  qualities,  as 
the  first  appear  to  confirm  or  to  estab- 
lish them.  These  prejudiced  observers 
are  in  an  ecstasy  at  the  sight  of  the 
periodical  motion  and  order  of  the  stars, 
at  the  productions  of  the  earth,  at  the 
astonishing  harmony  of  the  parts  of 
animals  ;  they  forget,  however,  the 
laws  of  motion,  the  powers  of  attrac- 
tion and  repulsion,  and  of  gravitation, 
and  assign  all  these  great  phenomena 
to  an  unknown  cause  of  which  they 
have  no  idea  !  In  short,  in  the  heat  of 
their  imagination,  they  place  man  in 
the  centre  of  nature  ;  they  believe  him 
to  be  the  object  and  the  end  of  all  that 
exists ;  that  it  is  for  him  that  every 
thing  is  made ;  that  it  is  to  rejoice  and 
please  him  that  every  thing  has  been 
created ;  whilst  they  do  not  perceive 
that  very  frequently  the  whole  of  na- 


ture appears  to  be  loosed  against  him, 
and  that  destiny  obstinately  persists  in 
rendering  him  the  most  miserable  of 
beings.* 

Atheism  is  only  so  rare  because  every 
thing  conspires  to  intoxicate  man,  from 
his  most  tender  age,  with  a  dazzling 
enthusiasm,  or  to  puff  him  up  with  a 
systematic  and  organized  ignorance, 
which  is  of  all  ignorance  the  most  dif- 
ficult to  vanquish  and  to  root  out. 
Theology  is  nothing  more  than  a  sci- 
ence of  words,  which,  by  dint  of  repeti- 
tion, we  accustom  ourselves  to  substi- 
tute for  things  ;  as  soon  as  we  feel  dis- 
posed to  analyze  them,  we  find  that 
they  do  not  present  us  with  any  actual 
sense.  There  are  very  few  men  in  the 
world  who  think  deeply,  who  render 
to  themselves  an  account  of  their  ideas, 
and  who  have  penetrating  minds  ;  just- 
ness of  intellect  is  one  of  the  rarest 
gifts  which  nature  bestows  on  the  hu- 
man species.f  Too  lively  an  imagina- 
tion, an  over-eager  curiosity,  are  as 
powerful  obstacles  to  the  discovery  of 
truth,  as  too  much  phlegm,  a  slow  con- 
ception, indolence  of  mind,  the  want 
of  a  thinking  habit.  All  men  have 
more  or  less  imagination,  curiosity, 
phlegm,  bile,  indolence,  activity :  it  is 
from  the  just  equilibrium,  which  nature 


*  The  progress  of  sound  philosophy  will 
always  be  fatal  to  superstition,  which  nature 
will  continually  contradict.  Astronomy  has 
caused  judiciary  astrology  to  vanish ;  experi- 
mental philosophy,  the  study  of  natural  his- 
tory and  chymistry,  render  it  impossible  for 
jugglers,  priests,  and  sorcerers,  to  perform 
miracles.  Nature,  deeply  studied,  must  ne- 
cessarily cause  that  phantom,  which  igno- 
rance has  substituted  in  its  place,  to  disap- 
pear. 

t  It  is  not  to  be  understood  here  that  na- 
ture has  any  choice  in  the  formation  of  her 
beings,  it  is  merely  to  be  considered  that  the 
circumstances  which  enable  the  junction  of 
a  certain  quantity  of  those  atoms  or  parts 
necessary  to  form  a  human  machine  in  such 
due  proportions  that  one  disposition  shall  not 
overbalance  the  other,  and  thus  render  the 
judgment  erroneous  by  giving  it  a  particular 
bias,  very  rarely  occur.  We  know  the  pro- 
cess of  making  gunpowder ;  nevertheless,  it 
will  sometimes  happen,  that  the  ingredients 
have  been  so  happily  blended,  that  this  de- 
structive article  is  of  a  superior  quality  to  the 
general  produce  of  the  manufactory,  without, 
however,  the  chymist  being  on  that  account 
entitled  to  any  particular  commendation ;  cir- 
cumstances have  been  favourable)  and  these 
seldom  occur. 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


329 


has  observed  in  their  organization,  that 
justness  of  mind  depends.  Neverthe- 
less, as  we  have  heretofore  said,  the 
organization  of  man  is  subject  to 
change,  and  the  judgment  of  his  mind 
varies  with  the  changes  which  his  ma- 
chine is  obliged  to  undergo:  hence  those 
almost  perpetual  revolutions  which  lake 
place  in  the  ideas  of  mortals,  above  all 
when  there  is  a  question  concerning 
those  of  objects  upon  which  experience 
does  not  furnish  them  with  any  fixed 
basis  whereon  to  support  them. 

To  seek  and  discover  truth,  which 
every  thing  strives  to  conceal  from  us, 
and  which  (the  accomplices  of  those 
who  lead  us  astray)  we  are  frequently 
disposed  to  dissimulate  to  ourselves, 
or  which  our  habitual  terrours  make 
us  fear  to  find,  there  needs  a  just  mind, 
an  upright  heart,  in  good  faith  with  it- 
self, and  an  imagination  tempered  with 
reason.  With  these  dispositions,  we 
shall  discover  truth,  which  never  shows 
itself  either  to  the  enthusiast,  smitten 
with  his  reveries  ;  to  the  superstitious 
being,  nourished  with  melancholy ; 
to  the  vain  man,  puffed  up  with  his 
presumptuous  ignorance ;  to  the  man 
devoted  to  dissipation  and  to  his  pleas- 
ures ;  or  to  the  reasoner,  disingenuous 
with  himself,  who  is  only  disposed  to 
form  illusions  to  his  mind.  With  these 
dispositions  the  attentive  philosopher, 
the  geometrician,  the  moralist,  the  pol- 
itician, the  theologian  himself,  when 
he  shall  sincerely  seek  truth,  will  find 
that  the  angular  stone,  which  serves 
for  the  foundation  of  all  religious  sys- 
tems, evidently  supports  falsehood. 
The  philosopher  will  find  in  matter  a 
sufficient  cause  of  his  existence,  of  his 
motion,  of  his  combination,  of  his 
modes  of  acting,  always  regulated  by 
general  laws  incapable  of  varying. 
The  geometrician  will  calculate  the 
active  force  of  matter,  and  without 
quitting  nature,  he  will  find  that,  to 
explain  her  phenomena,  it  is  not  ne- 
cessary to  have  recourse  to  a  being  or 
to  a  power  incommensurable  with  all 
known  powers.  The  politician,  in- 
structed in  the  true  motive-powers, 
which  can  act  on  the  mind  of  nations, 
will  feel  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  re- 
cur to  imaginary  motive-powers,  whilst 
there  are  real  ones  to  act  upon  the  will 
of  the  citizens,  and  to  determine  them 
to  labour  to  the  maintenance  of  their 
No.  XL— 42 


association  ;  he  will  acknowledge  that 
a  fictitious  motive-power  is  only  cal- 
culated to  slacken  or  disturb  the  motion 
of  a  machine  so  complicated  as  that  of 
society.  He  who  shall  more  honour 
truth  than  the  subtilties  of  theology, 
will  quickly  perceive  .that  this  vam 
science  is  nothing  more  than  an  un- 
intelligible heap  of  false  hypotheses, 
begging  of  principles,  of  sophisms,  of 
vitiated  circles,  of  futile  distinctions, 
of  captious  subtilties,  of  disingenuous 
arguments,  from  which  it  is  not  pos- 
sible there  should  result  any  thing  but 
puerilities,  or  endless  disputes.  In 
short,  all  men  who  have  sound  ideas 
of  morality,  of  virtue,  of  that  which  is 
useful  to  man  in  society,  whether  to 
conserve  himself,  or  to  conserve  the 
body  of  which  he  is  a  member,  will 
acknowledge  that  men.  in  order  to  dis- 
cover their  relations  and  their  duties, 
have  only  to  consult  their  own  nature, 
and  ought  to  be  particularly  careful 
not  to  found  them  upon  a  contradictory 
being,  or  to  borrow  them  from  a  model 
which  will  do  more  than  disturb  their 
minds,  and  render  them  uncertain  of 
their  proper  mode  of  acting. 

Thus  every  rational  thinker,  in  re- 
nouncing his  prejudices,  may  feel  the 
inutility  and  the  falsity  of  so  many  ab- 
stract systems,  which  hitherto  have 
only  served  to  confound  all  our  notions 
and  render  doubtful  the  clearest  truths. 
In  re-entering  his  proper  sphere,  and 
quitting  the  regions  of  the  empyreum, 
where  his  mind  can  only  bewilder  it- 
self; in  consulting  reason,  man  will 
discover  that  of  which  he  needs  a 
knowledge,  and  undeceive  himself  of 
those  chimerical  causes  which  enthu- 
siasm, ignorance,  and  falsehood,  have 
every  where  substituted  to  true  causes 
and  to  real  motive-powers,  that  act  in 
a  nature  out  of  which  the  human  mind 
can  never  ramble  without  going  astray, 
and  without  rendering  itself  miserable. 

The  Deicolists,  and  all  theologians, 
unceasingly  reproach  their  adversaries, 
with  their  taste  for  paradoxes,  or  for 
systems,  whilst  they  themselves  found 
all  their  reasoning  upon  imaginary 
hypotheses,  and  make  a  principle  of 
renouncing  experience,  of  despising 
nature,  of  setting  down  as  of  no  ac- 
count the  evidence  of  their  senses,  and 
of  submitting  their  understanding  to 
the  yoke  of  authority.  Would  not, 


MOTIVES  WHICH  LEAD  TO  ATHEISM,  &c. 


330 

then  the  disciples  of  nature  be  justi- 
fied in  saying  to  these  men  : — "  We 
only  assure  ourselves  of  that  which 
we  see ;  we  yield  to  nothing  but  evi- 
dence ;  if  we  have .  a  system,  it  is 
founded  only  upon  facts.  We  per- 
ceive in  ourselves  and  every  where 
else  nothing  but  matter,  and  we  con- 
clude from  it,  that  matter  can  both  feel 
and  think.  We  see  that  every  thing 
operates  in  the  world  after  mechanical 
laws,  by  the  properties,  by  the  com- 
bination, by  the  modification  of  matter, 
and  we  seek  no  other  explication  of 
the  phenomena  which  nature  presents. 
We  conceive  only  a  single  and  unique 
world,  in  which  every  thing  is  linked 
together,  where  each  effect  is  due  to 
a  natural  cause,  either  known  or  un- 
known, which  it  produces  according 
to  necessary  laws.  We  affirm  nothing 
that  is  not  demonstrable,  and  which 
you  are  not  obliged  to  admit  as  well 
as  us;  the  principles  which  we  lay 
down  are  clear  and  evident:  they  are 
facts ;  if  some  things  be  obscure  and 
unintelligible  to  us,  we  ingenuously 
agree  to  their  obscurity  ;  that  is  to  say, 
to  the  limits  of  our  own  knowledge.* 
But  we  do  not  imagine  an  hypothesis 
in  order  to  explain  these  effects ;  we 
either  consent  to  be  for  ever  ignorant 
of  them,  or  else  we  wait  until  time, 
experience,  and  the  progress  of  the 
human  mind  shall  throw  a  light  upon 
them.  Is  not  our  manner  of  philoso- 
phizing the  true  one?  Indeed,  in  every 
thing  which  we  advance  on  the  subject 
of  nature,  we  proceed  precisely  in  the 
same  manner  as  our  adversaries  them- 
selves proceed  in  all  the  other  sciences, 
such  as  natural  history,  natural 
philosophy,  mathematics,  chymistry, 
morality,  and  politics.  We  scrup- 
ulously confine  ourselves  to  that  which 
is  known  to  us  through  the  medium  of 
our  senses,  the  only  instruments  which 
nature  has  given  us  to  discover  truth. 
What  is  the  conduct  of  our  adver- 
saries ?  In  order  to  explain  things 
which  are  unknown  to  them,  they 
imagine  beings  still  more  unknown 
than  those  things  which  they  are  de- 
sirous of  explaining ;  beings  of  whom 
they  themselves  acknowledge  they  have 
no  one  notion  !  They  invert,  then,  the 

*  Nescira  quaedam  magna  par?  est  ea- 
pientjse. 


true  principles  of  logic,  which  consist 
in  proceeding  from  that  which  is  most 
known  to  that  with  which  we  are  least 
acquainted.  But  upon  what  do  they 
found  the  existence  of  these  beings  by 
whose  aid  they  pretend  to  resolve  all 
difficulties  ?  It  is  upon  the  universal 
ignorance  of  men,  upon  their  inexperi- 
ence, upon  their  terrours,  upon  their 
disordered  imaginations,  upon  a  pre- 
tended intimate  sense,  which  is  in 
reality  only  the  effect  of  ignorance, 
fear,  the  want  of  a  reflecting  habit, 
and  the  suffering  themselves  to  be 
guided  by  authority.  Such,  O  theolo- 
gians, are  the  ruinous  foundations  upon 
which  ye  build  the  edifice  of  your  doc- 
trine !  After  this,  ye  find  it  impossible 
to  form  to  yourselves  any  precise  idea 
of  those  Gods  who  serve  for  the  basis 
of  your  systems ;  ye  are  unable  to 
comprehend  either  their  attributes, 
their  existence,  the  nature  of  their  re- 
sidence, or  their  manner  of  acting. 
Thus,  even  by  your  own  confession, 
ye  are  in  a  state  of  profound  ignorance 
on  the  primary  elements  (of  which  it 
is  indispensably  requisite  to  have  a 
knowledge)  of  a  thing  which  ye  con- 
stitute the  cause  of  all  that  exists. 
Thus,  under  whatever  point  of  view 
ye  are  contemplated,  it  is  ye  that  build 
systems  in  the  air,  and  of  all  systema- 
tizers  ye  are  the  most  absurd  ;  because, 
in  relying  on  your  imagination  to  cre- 
ate a  cause,  this  cause  ought  at  least 
to  diffuse  light  over  the  whole ;  it  is 
upon  this  condition  alone  that  its  in- 
comprehensibility could  be  pardoned : 
but  can  this  cause  serve  to  explain  any 
thing  ?  Does  it  make  us  conceive  more 
clearly  the  origin  of  the  world,  the  na- 
ture of  man,  the  faculties  of  the  soul, 
the  source  of  good  and  of  evil  1  No, 
unquestionably,  this  imaginary  cause 
either  explains  nothing,  multiplies  of 
itself  the  difficulties  to  infinity,  or 
throws  embarrassments  and  obscurity 
on  all  those  matters  in  which  they  have 
made  it  interpose.  Whatever  may  be 
the  question  agitated,  it  becomes  com- 
plicated as  soon  as  they  introduce  the 
name  of  God :  this  name  envelops  the 
clearest  sciences  in  clouds,  and  renders 
the  most  evident  notions  complicated 
and  enigmatical.  What  idea  of  mo- 
rality does  your  Divinity  present  to 
man,  upon  whose  will  and  example 
you  found  all  the  virtues  1  Do  not  all 


SUMMARY  OP  THE  CODE  OF  NATURE. 


331 


your  revelations  show  him  to  us  under 
the  character  of  a  tyrant  who  sports 
witn  the  human  species ;  who  com- 
mits evil  for  the  pleasure  of  doing  it, 
who  only  governs  the  world  according 
to  the  rules  of  his  unjust  caprices  ? 
All  your  ingenious  systems,  all  your 
mysteries,  all  the  subtleties  which  ye 
have  invented,  are  they  capable  of  clear- 
ing your  God,  whom  ye  say  is  so  per- 
fect, from  that  blackness  and  atrocity 
with  which  good  sense  cannot  fail  to 
accuse  him  ?  In  short,  is  it  not  in  his 
name  that  ye  disturb  the  universe,  that 
ye  persecute,  that  ye  exterminate  all 
who  refuse  to  subscribe  to  those  sys- 
tematical reveries  which  ye  have  deco- 
rated with  the  pompous  name  of  reli- 
gion. Acknowledge,  then,  O  theolo- 
gians !  that  ye  are,  not  only  sys- 
tematically absurd,  but  also  that  ye 
Jinish  by  being  atrocious  and  cruel 
from  the  importance  which  your  pride 
and  your  interest  attach  to  those  ruin- 
ous systems,  under  which  ye  equally 
overwhelm  human  reason  and  the  fe- 
licity of  nations." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

A  Summary  of  the  Code  of  Nature. 

TRUTH  is  the  only  object  worthy  the 
research  of  every  wise  man ;  since  that 
which  is  false  cannot  be  useful  to  him: 
whatever  constantly  injures  him  can- 
not be  founded  upon  truth ;  conse- 
quently, ought  to  be  for  ever  proscribed. 
It  is,  then,  to  assist  the  human  mind, 
truly  to  labour  for  his  happiness,  to 
point  out  to  him  the  clew  by  which  he 
may  extricate  himself  from  those  fright- 
ful labyrinths  in  which  his  imagination 
wanders  ;  from  those  sinuosities  whose 
devious  course  makes  him  err,  without 
ever  finding  a  termination  to  his  incer- 
titude. Nature  alone,  known  through 
experience,  can  furnish  him  with  this 
desirable  thread  ;  her  eternal  energies 
can  alone  supply  the  means  of  attack- 
ing the  Minotaur ;  of  exterminating  the 
figments  of  hypocrisy  ;  of  destroying 
those  monsters,  who  during  so  many 
ages,  have  devoured  the  unhappy  vic- 
tims, which  the  tyranny  of  the  min- 
isters of  a  pretended  God  have  exacted 
as  a  cruel  tribute  from  affrighted  mor- 
tals. By  steadily  grasping  this  ines- 


timable clew,  man  can  never  be  led 
astray — will  never  ramble  out  of  his 
course  ;  but  if,  careless  of  its  invalua- 
ble properties,  for  a  single  instant  he 
suffers  it  to  drop  from  his  hand ;  if, 
like  another  Theseus,  ungrateful  for 
the  favour,  he  abandons  the  fair  be- 
stower,  he  will  infallibly  fall  again 
into  his  ancient  wanderings ;  most  as- 
suredly become  the  prey  to  the  canni- 
bal offspring  of  the  White  Bull.  In 
vain  shall  he  carry  his  views  towards 
heaven,  to  find  resources  which  are 
at  his  feet ;  so  long  as  man,  infatuated 
with  his  religious  notions,  shall  seek 
in  an  imaginary  world  the  rule  of  his 
earthly  conduct,  he  will  be  without 
principles;  while  he  shall  pertinaci- 
ously contemplate  the  regions  of  a 
fanciful  heaven,  so  long  he  will  grope 
in  those  where  he  actually  finds  him- 
self; his  uncertain  steps  will  never  en- 
counter the  welfare  he  desires  ;  never 
lead  him  to  that  repose  after  which  he 
so  ardently  sighs,  nor  conduct  him  to 
that  surety  which  is  so  decidedly  re- 
quisite to  consolidate  his  happiness. 

But  man,  blinded  by  his  prejudices, 
rendered  obstinate  in  injuring  his  fel- 
low, by  his  enthusiasm,  ranges  him- 
self in  hostility  even  against  those  who 
are  sincerely  desirous  of  procuring  for 
him  the  most  substantive  benefits.  Ac- 
customed to  be  deceived,  he  is  in  a 
state  of  continual  suspicion ;  habitu- 
ated to  mistrust  himself,  to  view  his 
reason  with  diffidence,  to  look  upon 
truth  as  dangerous,  he  treats  as  ene- 
mies even  those  who  most  eagerly 
strive  to  encourage  him ;  forewarned 
in  early  life  against  delusion,  by  the 
subtlety  of  imposture,  he  believes  him- 
self imperatively  called  upon  to  guard, 
with  the  most  sedulous  activity,  the 
bandeau  with  which  they  have  hood- 
winked him  ;  he  thinks  his  future  wel- 
fare involved  in  keeping  it  for  ever 
over  his  eyes  ;  he  therefore  wrestles 
with  all  those  who  attempt  to  tear  it 
from  his  obscured  optics.  If  his  visual 
organs,  accustomed  to  darkness,  are 
for  a  moment  opened,  the  light  offends 
thorn ;  he  is  distressed  by  its  efful- 
gence ;  he  thinks  it  criminal  to  be  en- 
lightened ;  he  darts  with  fury  upon 
those  who  hold  the  flambeau  by  which 
he  is  dazzled.  In  consequence,  the 
atheist  is  looked  upon  as  a  malignant 
pest,  as  a  public  poison,  which  like 


332 


SUMMARY   OF  THE  CODE  OP  NATURE. 


another  Upas,  destroys  every  thing 
within  the  vortex  of  its  influence  ;  he 
who  dares  to  arouse  mortals  from  the 
lethargic  habit  which  the  narcotic  doses 
administered  by  the  theologians  have 
induced,  passes  for  a  perturbator ;  he 
who  attempts  to  calm  their  frantic 
transports,  to  moderate  the  fury  of  their 
maniacal  paroxysms,  is  himself  viewed 
as  a  madman,  who  ought  to  be  closely 
chained  down  in  the  dungeons  appro- 
priated to  lunatics ;  he  who  invites  his 
associates  to  rend  their  chains  asunder, 
to  break  their  galling  fetters,  appears 
only  like  an  irrational,  inconsiderate 
being,  even  to  the  wretched  captives 
themselves  :  who  have  been  taught  to 
believe,  that  nature  formed  them  for 
no  other  purpose  than  to  tremble :  only 
called  them  into  existence  that  they 
might  be  loaded  Avith  shackles.  In 
consequence  of  these  fatal  preposses- 
sions, the  Disciple  of  Nature  is  gen- 
erally treated  as  an  assassin ;  is  com- 
monly received  by  his  fellow-citizens 
in  the  same  manner  as  the  feathered 
race  receive  the  doleful  bird  of  night, 
which,  as  soon  as  it  quits  its  retreat, 
all  the  other  birds  follow  with  a  com- 
mon hatred,  uttering  a  variety  of  dole- 
ful cries. 

No,  mortals  blended  by  terrour !  The 
friend  of  nature,  is  not  your  enemy  ; 
its  interpreter  is  not  the  minister  of 
falsehood  ;  the  destroyer  of  your  vain 
phantoms  is  not  the  devastator  of  those 
truths  necessary  to  your  happiness ; 
the  disciple  of  reason  is  not  an  irra- 
tional being,  who  either  seeks  to  poison 
you,  or  to  infect  you  with  a  dangerous 
delirium.  If  he  wrests  the  thunder 
from  the  hands  of  those  terrible  Gods 
that  affright  ye,  it  is 'that  ye  may  dis- 
continue your  march,  in  the  midst  of 
storms,  over  roads  that  ye  can  only 
distinguish  by  the  sudden,  but  evanes- 
cent glimmerings  of  the  electric  fluid. 
If  he  breaks  those  idols,  which  fear  has 
served  with  myrrh  and  frankincense — 
which  superstition  has  surrounded  by 
gloomy  despondency — which  fanati- 
cism has  imbrued  with  blood  ;  it  is  to 
substitute  in  their  place  those  consoling 
truths  that  are  calculated  to  heal  the 
desperate  wounds  ye  have  received ; 
that  are  suitable  to  inspire  you  with 
courage,  sturdily  to  oppose  yourselves 
to  such  dangerous  errours ;  that  have 
power  to  enable  you  to  resist  such 


formidable  enemies.  If  he  throws 
down  the  temples,  overturns  the  altars, 
so  frequently  bathed  with  the  bitter 
tears  of  the  unfortunate,  blackened  by 
the  most  cruel  sacrifices,  smoked  with 
servile  incense,  it  is  that  he  may  erect 
a  fane  sacred  to  peace  ;  a  hall  dedi- 
cated to  reason  ;  a  durable  monument 
to  virtue,  in  which  ye  may  at  all 
times  find  an  asylum  against  your 
own  phrensy ;  a  refuge  from  your  own 
ungovernable  passions ;  a  sanctuary 
against  those  powerful  men,  by  whom 
ye  are  oppressed.  If  he  attacks  the 
haughty  pretensions  of  deified  tyrants, 
who  crush  ye  with  an  iron  sceptre,  it 
is  that  ye  may  enjoy  the  rights  of  your 
nature  ;  it  is  to  the  end  that  ye  may 
be  substantively  freemen,  in  mind  as 
well  as  in  body  ;  that  ye  may  not  be 
slaves,  eternally  chained  to  the  oar  of 
misery  ;  it  is  that  ye  may  at  length  be 
governed  by  men  who  are  citizens, 
who  may  cherish  their  own  semblances, 
who  may  protect  mortals  like  them- 
selves, who  may  actually  consult  the 
interests  of  those  from  whom  they  hold 
their  power.  If  he  battles  with  im- 
posture, it  is  to  re-establish  truth  in 
those  rights  which  have  been  so  long 
usurped  by  fiction.  If  he  undermines 
the  base  of  that  unsteady,  fanatical . 
morality,  which  has  hitherto  done  no- 
thing more  than  perplex  your  minds, 
without  correcting  your  hearts ;  it  is 
to  give  to  ethics  an  immoveable  basis, 
a  solid  foundation,  secured  upon  your 
own  nature ;  upon  the  reciprocity  of 
those  wants  which  are  continually  re- 
generating in  sensible  beings :  dare, 
then,  to  listen  to  his  voice ;  you  will 
find  it  much  more  intelligible  than 
those  ambiguous  oracles,  which  are 
announced  to  you  as  the  offspring  of  a 
capricious  Divinity ;  as  imperious  de- 
crees that  are  unceasingly  at  variance 
with  themselves.  Listen,  then,  to  na- 
ture, she  never  contradicts  her  own 
eternal  laws. 

"  O  thou  !"  cries  this  nature  to  man, 
"who,  following  the  impulse  I  have 
given  you,  during  your  whole  existence, 
incessantly  tend  towards  happiness,  do 
not  strive  to  resist  my  sovereign  law. 
Labour  to  your  own  felicity  ;  partake 
without  fear  of  the  banquet  which  is 
spread  before  you,  and  be  happy ;  you 
will  find  the  means  legibly  written  on 
your  own  heart.  Vainly  dost  thou,  O 


SUMMARY   OF  THE  CODE  OF  NATURE. 


333 


superstitious  being!* seek  after  thine 
happiness  beyond  the  limits  of  the  uni- 
verse, in  which  my  hand  hath  placed 
thee  :  vainly  shall  thou  ask  it  of  those 
inexorable  phantoms,  which  thine  ima- 
gination, ever  prone  to  wander,  would 
establish  upon  my  eternal  throne :  vain- 
ly dost  thou  expect  it  in  those  celestial 
regions,  to  which  thine  own  delirium 
hath  given  a  locality  and  a  name :  vain- 
ly dost  thou  reckon  upon  capricious  dei- 
ties with  whose  benevolence  thou  art  in 
such  ecstasies,  whilst  they  only  fill  thine 
abode  with  calamity — thine  heart  with 
dread — thy  mind  with  illusions — thy 
bosom  with  groans.  Dare,  then,  to 
affranchise  thyself  from  the  trammels 
of  religion,  my  self-conceited,  prag- 
matic rival,  who  mistakes  my  rights  ; 
renounce  those  Gods,  who  are  usurpers 
of  my  privileges,  ana  return  under  the 
dominion  of  my  laws.  It  is .  in  my 
empire  alone  that  true  liberty  reigns. 
Tyranny  is  unknown  to  its  soil ;  equity 
unceasingly  watches  over  the  rights  of 
all  my  subjects,  maintains  them  in  the 
possession  of  their  just  claims  ;  bene- 
volence, grafted  upon  humanity,  con- 
nects them  by  amicable  bonds ;  truth 
enlightens  them,  and  never  can  im- 
posture blind  them  with  his  obscuring 
mists.  Return,  then,  my  child,  to  thy 
fostering  mother's  arms !  Deserter, 
trace  back  thy  wandering  steps  to  na- 
ture !  She  will  console  thee  for  thine 
evils  ;  she  will  drive  from  thine  heart 
those  appalling  fears  which  overwhelm 
thee ;  those  inquietudes  that  distract 
thee  ;  those  transports  which  agitate 
thee  ;  those  hatreds  that  separate  thee 
from  thy  fellow-man,  whom  thou 
shouldst  love  as  thyself.  Return  to 
nature,  to  humanity,  to  thyself!  Strew 
flowers  over  the  road  of  life  :  cease  to 
contemplate  the  future  ;  live  to  thine 
own  happiness  ;  exist  for  thy  fellow- 
creatures  ;  retire  into  thyself,  examine 
thine  own  heart,  then  consider  the 
sensitive  beings  by  whom  thou  art  sur- 
rounded, and  leave  those  Gods  who 
can  effect  nothing  towards  thy  felicity. 
Enjoy  thyself,  and  cause  others  also 
to  enjoy  those  comforts  which  I  have 
placed  with  a  liberal  hand,  for  all  the 
children  of  the  earth,  who  all  equally 
emanate  from  my  bosom  :  assist  them 
to  support  the  sorrows  to  which  destiny 
has  submitted  them  in  common  with 
thyself.  Know,  that  I  approve  thy 


pleasures,  when  without  injuring  thy- 
self, they  are  not  fatal  to  thy  brethren, 
whom  I  have  rendered  indispensably 
necessary  to  thine  own  individual  hap- 
piness. These  pleasures  are  freely 
permitted  thee,  if  thou  indulges!  them 
with  moderation ;  with  that  discretion 
which  I  myself  have  fixed.  Be  happy, 
then,  O  man  !  Nature  invites  thee  to 
participate  in  it ;  but  always  remem- 
ber, thou  canst  not  be  so  alone ;  be- 
cause I  invite  all  mortals  to  happiness 
as  well  as  thyself;  thou  will  find  it  is 
only  in  securing  their  felicity  that  thou 
canst  consolidate  thine  own.  Such  is 
the  decree  of  thy  destiny :  if  thou  shalt 
attempt  to  withdraw  thyself  from  its 
operation,  recollect  that  hatred  will 
pursue  thee ;  vengeance  overtake  thy 
steps ;  and  remorse  be  ever  ready  at 
hand  to  punish  the  infractions  of  its 
irrevocable  decrees. 

"  Follow,  then,  O  man !  in  whatever 
station  thou  findest  thyself,  the  routine 
I  have  described  for  thee,  to  obtain 
that  happiness  to  which  thou  hast  an 
indispensable  right  to  challenge  pre- 
tension. Let  the  sensations  of  hu- 
manity interest  thee  for  the  condition 
of  other  men,  who  are  thy  fellow-crea- 
tures ;  let  thine  heart  have  commiser- 
ation for  their  misfortunes ;  let  thy 
generous  hand  spontaneously  stretch 
forth  to  lend  succour  to  the  unhappy 
mortal  who  is  overwhelmed  by  his 
destiny  ;  always  bearing  in  thy  recol- 
lection, that  it  may  fall  heavy  upon 
thyself,  as  it  now  does  upon  him.  Ac- 
knowledge, then,  without  guile,  that 
every  unfortunate  has  an  inalienable 
right  to  thy  kindness.  Above  all,  wipe 
from  the  eyes  of  oppressed  innocence 
the  trickling  crystals  of  agonizing  feel- 
ing ;  let  the  tears  of  virtue  in  distress 
fall  upon  thy  sympathizing  bosom  ;  let 
the  genial  glow  of  sincere  friendship 
animate  thine  honest  heart ;  let  the 
fond  attachment  of  a  mate,  cherished 
by  thy  warmest  affection,  make  thee 
forget  the  sorrows  of  life  :  be  faithful 
to  her  love,  responsible  to  her  tender- 
ness, that  she  may  reward  thee  by  a 
reciprocity  of  feeling ;  that  under  the 
eyes  of  parents,  united  in  virtuous 
esteem,  thy  offspring  may  learn  to  set 
a  proper  value  on  practical  virtue  ;  that 
after  having  occupied  thy  riper  years, 
they  may  comfort  thy  declining  age, 
gild  with  content  thy  setting  sun,  cheer 


334 


SUMMARY  OF  THE  CODE  OF  NATURE. 


the  evening  of  thine  existence,  by  a 
dutiful  return  of  that  care  which  thou 
shall  have  bestowed  on  their  imbecile 
infancy. 

"  Be  just,  because  equity  is  the  sup- 
port of  human  society  !  Be  good,  be- 
cause goodness  connects  all  hearts  in 
adamantine  bonds  !  Be  indulgent,  be- 
cause feeble  thyself,  thou  livest  with 
beings  who  partake  of  thy  weakness  ! 
Be  gentle,  because  mildness  attracts 
attention  !  Be  thankful,  because  grat- 
itude feeds  benevolence,  nourishes  gen- 
erosity !  Be  modest,  because  haughti- 
ness is  disgusting  to  beings  at  all  times 
well  with  themselves.  Forgive  in- 
juries, because  revenge  perpetuates 
hatred !  Do  good  to  him  who  in- 
jureth  thee,  in  order  to  show  thyself 
more  noble  than  he  is ;  to  make  a  friend 
of  him,  who  was  once  thine  enemy  ! 
Be  reserved  in  thy  demeanour,  tem- 
perate in  thine  enjoyment,  chaste  in 
thy  pleasures,  because  voluptuousness 
begets  weariness,  intemperance  en- 
genders disease ;  forward  manners  are 
revolting :  excess  at  all  times  relaxes 
the  springs  of  thy  machine,  will  ulti- 
mately destroy  thy  being;  and  render 
thee  hateful  to  thyself,  contemptible  to 
others. 

"  Be  a  faithful  citizen ;  because  the 
community  is  necessary  to  thine  own 
security  ;  to  the  enjoyment  of  thine 
own  existence ;  to  the  furtherance  of 
thine  own  happiness.  Be  loyal,  and 
submit  to  legitimate  authority;  because 
it  is  requisite  to  the  maintenance  of 
that  society  which  is  necessary  to  thy- 
self. Be  obedient  to  the  laws;  be- 
cause they  are,  or  ought  to  be,  the  ex- 
pression of  the  public  will,  to  which 
thine  own  particular  will  ought  ever 
to  be  subordinate.  Defend  thy  country 
with  zeal ;  because  it  is  that  which 
renders  thee  happy,  which  contains 
thy  property,  as  well  as  those  beings 
dearest  to  thine  heart :  do  not  permit 
this  common  parent  of  thyself,  as  well 
as  of  thy  fellow-citizens,  to  fall  under 
the  shackles  of  tyranny ;  because  from 
thence  it  will  be  no  more  than  thy 
common  prison.  If  thy  country,  deaf 
to  the  equity  of  thy  claims,  refuses 
thee  tappiness — if,  submitted  to  an 
unjust  power,  it  suffers  thee  to  be  op- 
pressed, withdraw  thyself  from  its 
bosom  in  silence,  but  never  disturb  its 
peace. 


"  In  short,  be  a  man ;  be  a  sensible, 
rational  being  ;  be  a  faithful  husband ; 
a  tender  father ;  an  equitable  master ; 
a  zealous  citizen  ;  labour  to  serve  thy 
country  by  thy  prowess,  by  thy  talents, 
by  thine  industry  ;  above  all,  by  thy 
virtues.  Participate  with  thine  asso- 
ciates those  gifts  which  nature  has  be- 
stowed upon  thee ;  diffuse  happiness 
among  thy  fellow-mortals  ;  inspire  thy 
fellow-citizens  with  content ;  spread 
joy  over  all  those  who  approach  thee, 
that  the  sphere  of  thine  actions,  en- 
livened by  thy  kindness,  illumined  by 
thy  benevolence,  may  react  upon  thy- 
self; be  assured  that  the  man  who 
makes  others  happy,  cannot  himself  be 
miserable.  In  thus  conducting  thyself, 
whatever  may  be  the  injustice  of  others, 
whatever  may  be  the  blindness  of  those 
beings  with  whom  it  is  thy  destiny  to 
live,  thou  wilt  never  be  totally  bereft 
of  the  recompense  which  is  thy  due ; 
no  power  on  earth  will  be  able  to  ravish 
from  thee  that  never-failing  source  of 
the  purest  felicity,  inward  content ;  at 
each  moment  thou  wilt  fall  back  with 
pleasure  upon  thyself;  thou  wilt  nei- 
ther feel  the  rankling  of  shame,  the 
terrour  of  internal  alarm,  nor  find  thy 
heart  corroded  by  remorse.  Thou  wilt 
esteem  thyself;  thou  wilt  be  cherished 
by  the  virtuous,  applauded  and  loved 
by  all  good  men,  whose  suffrages  are 
much  more  valuable  than  those  of  the 
bewildered  multitude.  Nevertheless, 
if  externals  occupy  thy  contemplation, 
smiling  countenances  will  greet  thy 
presence ;  happy  faces  will  express 
the  interest  they  have  in  thy  welfare ; 
jocund  beings  will  make  thee  partici- 
pate in  their  placid  feelings.  A  life  so 
spent,  will  each  moment  be  marked  by 
the  serenity  of  thine  own  mind,  by  the 
affection  of  the  beings  who  environ  thee  ; 
will  be  made  cheerful  by  the  friendship 
of  thy  fellows  ;  will  enable  thee  to  rise 
a  contented,  satisfied  guest  from  the 
general  feast,  conduct  thee  gently  down 
the  declivity  of  life,  lead  thee  peaceably 
to  the  period  of  thy  days,  for  die  thou 
must :  but  already  thou  wilt  survive 
thyself  in  thought ;  thou  wilt  aiways 
live  in  the  remembrance  of  thy  friends ; 
in  the  grateful  recollection  of  those  be- 
ings whose  comforts  have  been  aug- 
mented by  thy  fiiendly  attentions;  thy 
virtues  will,  beforehand,  have  erected 
to  thy  fame  an  imperishable  mbnu- 


SUMMARY  OF  THE  CODE  OP  NATURE 


335 


ment.  If  Heaven  occupied  itself  with 
thee,  it  would  feel  satisfied  with  thy 
conduct,  when  it  shall  thus  have  con- 
tented the  earth. 

"  Beware,  then,  how  thou  corn- 
plainest  of  thy  condition ;  be  just,  be 
kind,  be  virtuous,  and  thou  canst  never 
be  wholly  destitute  of  felicity.  Take 
heed  how  thou  enviest  the  transient 
pleasure  of  seductive  crime ;  the  de- 
ceitful power  of  victorious  tyranny  ; 
the  specious  tranquillity  of  interested 
imposture  ;  the  plausible  manners  of 
venal  justice  ;  the  showy,  ostentatious 
parade  of  hardened  opulence.  Never 
be  tempted  to  increase  the  number  of 
sycophants  to  an  ambitious  despot ;  to 
swell  the  catalogue  of  slaves  to  an  un- 
just tyrant ;  never  suffer  thyself  to  be 
allured  to  infamy,  to  the  practice  of 
extortion,  to  the  commission  of  out- 
rage, by  the  fatal  privilege  of  oppres- 
sing thy  fellows ;  always  recollect  it 
will  be  at  the  expense  of  the  most  bit- 
ter remorse  thou  wilt  acquire  this  bane- 
ful advantage.  Never  be  the  mercenary 
accomplice  of  the  spoilers  of  thy  coun- 
try ;  they  are  obliged  to  blush  secretly 
whenever  they  meet  the  public  eye. 

"  For,  do  not  deceive  thyself,  it  is  I 
who  punish,  more  surely  than  the  Gods, 
all  the  crimes  of  the  earth  ;  the  wicked 
may  escape  the  laws  of  man,  but  they 
never  escape  mine.  It  is  I  who  have 
formed  the  hearts,  as  well  as  the  bodies 
of  mortals ;  it  is  I  who  have  fixed  the 
laws  which  govern  them.  If  thou  de- 
liverest  thyself  up  to  voluptuous  enjoy- 
ment, the  companions  of  thy  debauch- 
eries may  applaud  thee ;  but  I  shall 
punish  thee  with  the  most  cruel  in- 
firmities ;  these  will  terminate  a  life 
of  shame  with  deserved  contempt.  If 
thou  givest  thyself  up  to  intemperate 
indulgences,  human  laws  may  not  cor- 
rect thee,  but  I  shall  castigate  thee 
severely  by  abridging  thy  days.  If 
thou  art  vicious,  thy  fatal  habits  will 
recoil  on  thine  own  head.  Princes, 
those  terrestrial  Divinities,  whose 
power  places  them  above  the  laws  of 
mankind,  are  nevertheless  obliged  to 
tremble  under  the  silent  operation  of 
my  decrees.  It  is  I  who  chastise  them ; 
it  is  I  who  fill  their  breasts  with  sus- 
picion ;  it  is  I  who  inspire  them  with 
terrour ;  it  is  I  who  make  them  writhe 
under  inquietude ;  it  is  I  who  make 
them  shudder  with  honour,  at  the  very 


name  of  august  truth ;  It  is  I  who, 
amidst  the  crowd  of  nobles  who  sur- 
round them,  make  them  feel  the  in- 
ward workings  of  shame ;  the  keen 
anguish  of  guilt ;  the  poisoned  arrows 
of  regret ;  the  cruel  stings  of  remorse ; 
it  is  I  who,  when  they  abuse  my  bounty, 
diffuse  weariness  over  their  benumbed 
souls ;  it  is  I  who  follow  uncreated, 
eternal  justice ;  it  is  I  who,  without 
distinction  of  persons,  know  how  to 
make  the  balance  even ;  to  adjust  the 
chastisement  to  the  fault ;  to  make  the 
misery  bear  its  due  proportion  to  the 
depravity  ;  to  inflict  punishment  com- 
mensurate with  the  crime.  The  laws 
of  man  are  just,  only  when  they  are 
in  conformity  with  mine ;  his  judg- 
ments are  rational,  only  when  I  have 
dictated  them :  my  laws  alone  are  im- 
mutable, universal,  irrefragable ;  formed 
to  regulate  the  condition  of  the  human 
race,  in  all  ages,  in  all  places,  under 
all  circumstances. 

"  If  thou  doubtest  mine  authority,  if 
thou  questionest  the  irresistible  power 
I  possess  over  mortals,  contemplate  the 
vengeance  I  wreak  on  all  those  who 
resist  my  decrees.  Dive  into  the  re- 
cesses of  the  hearts  of  those  various 
criminals,  whose  countenances,  as- 
suming a  forced  smile,  cover  minds 
torn  with  anguish.  Dost  thou  not  be- 
hold ambition  tormented  day  and  night, 
with  an  ardour  which  nothing  can  ex- 
tinguish 1  Dost  thou  not  see  the  mighty 
conqueror  become  the  lord  of  devastated 
solitudes ;  his  victorious  career,  marked 
by  a  blasted  cultivation,  reign  sorrow- 
fully over  smoking  ruins  ;  govern  un- 
happy wretches  who  curse  him  in  their 
hearts ;  while  his  mind,  gnawed  by 
remorse,  sickens  at  the  gloomy  aspect 
of  his  own  triumphs  ?  Dost  thou  be- 
lieve that  the  tyrant,  encircled  with 
his  flatterers,  who  stun  him  with  their 
praise,  is  unconscious  of  the  hatred 
which  his  oppression  excites  ;  of  the 
contempt  which  his  vices  draw  upon 
him  ;  of  the  sneers  which  his  inutility 
call  forth  ;  of  the  scorn  which  his  de- 
baucheries entail  upon  his  name  ?  Dost 
thou  think  that  the  haughty  courtier 
does  not  inwardly  blush  at  the  galling 
insults  he  brooks,  and  despise,  from  the 
bottom  of  his  heart,  those  meannesses 
by  which  he  is  compelled  to  purchase 
favours  1  Contemplate  the  indolent 
child  of  wealth,  behold  him  a  prey  to 


336 


SUMMARY   OP  THE  CODE  OF  NATURE. 


the  lassitude  of  unmeasured  enjoyment, 
corroded  by  the  satiety  which  always 
follows  his  exhausted  pleasures.  View 
the  miser  with  an  emaciated  counte- 
nance, the  consequence  of  his  own 
penurious  disposition,  whose  callous 
heart  is  inaccessible  to  the  calls  of 
misery,  groaning  over  the  accumulating 
load  of  useless  treasure,  which  at  the 
expense  of  himself,  he  has  laboured  to 
amass.  Behold  the  gay  voluptuary, 
the  smiling  debauchee,  secretly  lament 
the  health  they  have  so  inconsiderately 
damaged,  so  prodigally  thrown  away : 
see  disunion,  joined  to  hatred,  reign  be- 
tween those  adulterous  married  couples. 
See  the  liar  deprived  of  all  confidence; 
the  knave  stript  of  all  trust ;  the  hypo- 
crite fearfully  avoiding  the  penetrating 
looks  of  his  inquisitive  neighbour  ;  the 
impostor  trembling  at  the  very  name 
of  formidable  truth.  Bring  under  your 
review  the  heart  of  the  envious,  use- 
lessly dishonoured ;  that  withers  at 
the  sight  of  his  neighbour's  prosperity. 
Cast  your  eyes  on  the  frozen  heart  of 
the  ungrateful  wretch,  whom  no  kind- 
ness can  warm,  no  benevolence  thaw, 
no  beneficence  convert  into  a  genial 
fluid.  Survey  the  iron  feelings  of  that 
monster  whom  the  sighs  of  the  un- 
fortunate cannot  mollify.  Behold  the 
revengeful  being  nourished  with  ven- 
omous gall,  whose  very  thoughts  are 
serpents ;  who  in  his  rage  consumes 
himself.  Envy,  if  thou  canst,  the  wa- 
king slumbers  of  the  homicide ;  the 
starlings  of  the  iniquitous  judge  ;  the 
restlessness  of  the  oppressor  of  inno- 
cence ;  the  fearful  visions  of  the  ex- 
tortioner ;  whose  couches  are  infested 
with  the  torches  of  the  furies.  Thou 
tremblest  without  doubt  at  the  sight  of 
that  distraction  which,  amidst  their 
splendid  luxuries,  agitates  those  farm- 
ers and  receivers  of  taxes,  who  fatten 
upon  public  calamity — who  devour  the 
substance  of  the  orphan — who  con- 
sume the  means  of  the  widow — who 
grind  the  hard  earnings  of  the  poor : 
thou  shudderest  at  witnessing  the  re- 
morse which  rends  the  minds  of  those 
reverend  criminals,  whom  the  unin- 
formed believe  to  be  happy,  whilst  the 
contempt  which  they  have  for  them- 
selves, the  unerring  shafts  of  secret 
upbraidings,  are  incessantly  revenging 
an  outraged  nation.  Thou  seest,  that 
content  is  for  ever  banished  the  heart 


— quiet  for  ever  driven  from  the  habita- 
tions of  those  miserable  wretches  on 
whose  minds  I  have  indelibly  engraved 
the  scorn,  the  infamy,  the  chastisement 
which  they  deserve.  But,  no  !  thine 
eyes  cannot  sustain  the  tragic  spectacle 
of  my  vengeance.  Humanity  obliges 
thee  to  partake  of  their  merited  suffer- 
ings ;  thou  art  moved  to  pity  for  these 
unhappy  people,  to  whom  consecrated 
errours  renders  vice  necessary  ;  whose 
fatal  habits  make  them  familiar  with 
crime.  Yes;  thou  shunnest  them  with- 
out hating  them  ;  thou  wouldst  succour 
them,  if  their  contumacious  perversity 
had  left  thee  the  means.  When  thou 
comparest  thine  own  condition,  when 
thou  examinest  thine  own  mind,  thou 
wilt  have  just  cause  to  felicitate  thy- 
self, if  thou  shall  find  that  peace  has 
taken  up  her  abode  wilh  thee ;  that 
contentmenl  dwells  al  ihe  bollom  of 
ihine  own  heart  In  shorl,  thou  seest 
accomplished  upon  ihem,  as  well  as 
upon  ihyself,  the  unallerable  decrees 
of  desliny,  which  imperiously  demand, 
lhal  crime  shall  punish  itself,  thai  vir- 
tue never  shall  be  destitule  of  remu- 
neralion." 

Such  is  the  sum  of  those  trulhs  which 
are  contained  in  the  Code  of  Nature; 
such  are  the  doctrines,  which  ils  dis- 
ciples can  announce.  They  are  un- 
questionably preferable  to  that  super- 
natural religion  which  never  does  any 
thing  but  mischief  lo  ihe  human  spe- 
cies. Such  is  ihe  worship  lhat  is  taught 
by  thai  sacred  reason,  which  is  ihe  ob- 
ject of  contempl  wilh  ihe  iheologian — 
which  meets  ihe  insull  of  ihe  fanalic, 
who  only  estimates  thai  which  man 
can  neither  conceive  nor  practise  ;  who 
makes  his  morality  consist  in  fictitious 
duties  ;  his  virlue  in  actions  generally 
useless,  frequently  pernicious  to  the 
welfare  of  society  ;  who,  for  want  of 
being  acquainted  with  nature,  which 
is  before  their  eyes,  believe  themselves 
obliged  to  seek  in  ideal  worlds  imagi 
nary  motives,  of  which  every  thing 
proves  the  inefficacy.  The  motive 
which  the  morality  of  nature  employs, 
is  the  self-evident  interesl  of  each  in- 
dividual, of  each  communily,  of  ihe 
whole  human  species,  in  all  limes,  in 
every  country,  under  all  circumslances. 
Ils  worship  is  ihe  sacrifice  of  vice,  ihe 
practice  of  real  virlues ;  ils  object  is 
the  conservation  of  the  human  race. 


SUMMARY   OF  THE   CODE  OF  NATURE. 


337 


the  happiness  of  the  individual,  the 
peace  of  mankind  ;  its  recompenses  are 
affection,  esteem,  and  glory  ;  or  in  their 
default,  contentment  of  mind,  with 
merited  self-esteem,  of  which  no  power 
will  ever  be  able  to  deprive  virtuous 
mortals ;  its  punishments,  are  hatred, 
contempt,  and  indignation ;  which  so- 
ciety always  reserves  for  those  who 
outrage  its  interests ;  from  which  even 
the  most  powerful  can  never  effectually 
shield  themselves. 

Those  nations  who  shall  be  dis- 
posed to  practise  a  morality  so  wise, 
who  shall  inculcate  it  in  infancy,  whose 
laws  shall  unceasingly  confirm  it,  will 
neither  have  occasion  for  superstition, 
nor  for  chimeras.  Those  who  shall 
obstinately  prefer  figments  to  their 
dearest  interests,  will  certainly  march 
forward  to  ruin.  If  they  maintain 
themselves  for  a  season,  it  is  because 
the  power  of  nature  sometimes  drives 
them  back  to  reason,  in  despite  of  those 
prejudices  which  appear  to  lead  them 
on  to  certain  destruction.  Supersti- 
tion, leagued  with  tyranny  for  the 
waste  of  the  human  species,  are  them- 
selves frequently  obliged  to  implore 
the  assistance  of  a  reason  which  they 
contemn  ;  of  a  nature  which  they  dis- 
dain :  which  they  debase  ;  which  they 
endeavour  to  crush  under  the  ponder- 
ous bulk  of  their  false  Divinities.  Re- 
ligion, in  all  times  so  fatal  to  mortals, 
when  attacked  by  reason,  assumes  the 
sacred  mantle  of  public  utility ;  it  rests 
its  importance  on  false  grounds,  founds 
its  rights  upon  the  indissoluble  alliance 
which  it  pretends  subsists  between 
morality  and  itself,  although  it  never 
ceases  for  a  single  .instant  to  wage 
against  it  the  most  cruel  hostility.  It 
is,  unquestionably,  by  this  artifice,  that 
it  has  seduced  so  many  sages.  In  the 
honesty  of  their  hearts,  they  believe  it 
useful  to  politics ;  necessary  to  restrain 
the  ungovernable  fury  of  the  passions ; 
thus  hypocritical  superstition,  in  order 
to  mask  to  superficial  observers  its  own 
hideous  character,  always  knows  how 
to  cover  itself  with  the  sacred  armour 
of  utility;  to  buckle  on  the  invulnera- 
ble shield  of  virtue  ;  it  has,  therefore, 
been  believed  imperative  to  respect  it, 
and  favour  imposture,  because  it  has 
artfully  entrenched  itself  behind  the 
altars  of  truth.  It  is  from  this  intrench- 
ment  we  ought  to  drive  it ;  it  should 

No.  XI.-43 


be  dragged  forth  to  public  view  ;  strip- 
ped of  its  surreptitious  panoply  ;  ex- 
posed in  its  native  deformity ;  in  order 
that  the  human  race  may  become  ac- 
quainted with  its  dissimulation ;  that 
mankind  may  have  a  knowledge  of  its 
crimes  ;  that  the  universe  may  behold 
its  sacrilegious  hands,  armed  with  ho- 
micidal poniards,  stained  with  the  blood 
of  nations,  whom  it  either  intoxicates 
with  its  fury,  or  immolates  without 
pity  to  the  violence  of  its  passions. 

The  Morality  of  Nature  is  the  only 
religion  which  her  interpreter  offers  to 
his  fellow-citizens,  to  nations,  to  the 
human  species,  to  future  races,  weaned 
from  those  prejudices  which  have  so 
frequently  disturbed  the  felicity  of  their 
ancestors.  The  friend  of  mankind  can- 
not be  the  friend  of  God,  who  at  all 
times  has  been  a  real  scourge  to  the 
earth.  The  Apostle  of  Nature  will  not 
be  the  instrument  of  deceitful  chimeras, 
by  which  this  world  is  made  only  an 
abode  of  illusions  ;  the  adorer  of  truth 
will  not  compromise  with  falsehood ; 
he  will  make  no  covenant  with  errour, 
conscious  it  must  always  be  fatal -to 
mortals.  He  knows  that  the  happiness 
of  the  human  race  imperiously  exacts 
that  the  dark  unsteady  edifice  of  su- 
perstition should  be  razed  to  its  foun- 
dations, in  order  to  elevate  on  its  ruins 
a  temple  to  nature  suitable  to  peace — 
a  fane  sacred  to  virtue.  He  feels  it  is 
only  by  extirpating,  even  to  the  most 
slender  fibres,  the  poisonous  tree,  that 
during  so  many  ages  has  overshadowed 
the  universe,  that  the  inhabitants  of  this 
world  will  be  able  to  use  their  own 
eyes — to  bear  with  steadiness  that  light 
which  is  competent  to  illumine  their 
understanding — to  guide  their  way- 
ward steps — to  give  the  necessary 
ardency  to  their  minds.  If  his  efforts 
should  be  vain ;  if  he  cannot  inspire 
with  courage  beings  too  much  accus- 
tomed to  tremble  ;  he  will,  at  least, 
applaud  himself  for  having  dared  the 
attempt.  Nevertheless,  he  will  not 
judge  his  exertions  fruitless,  if  he  has 
only  been  enabled  to  make  a  single 
mortal  happy :  if  his  principles  have 
calmed  the  conflicting  transports  of  one 
honest  mind  ;  if  his  reasonings  have 
cheered  up  some  few  virtuous  hearts. 
At  least  he  will  have  the  advantage  of 
having  banished  from  his  own  mind 
the  importunate  terrour  of  superstition ; 


338 


SUMMARY  OF  THE  CODE  OF  NATURE. 


of  having  expelled  from  his  own  heart 
the  gall  which  exasperates  zeal :  of 
having  trodden  under  foot  those  chi- 
meras with  which  the  uninformed  are 
tormented.  Thus,  escaped  from  the 
peril  of  the  storm,  he  will  calmly  con- 
template from  the  summit  of  his  rock, 
those  tremendous  hurricanes  which 
superstition  excites ;  he  will  hold  forth 
a  succouring  hand  to  those  who  shall 
be  willing  to  accept  it ;  he  will  en- 
courage them  with  his  voice  ;  he  will 
second  them  with  his  unwearied  ex- 
ertions, and  in  the  warmth  of  his 
own  compassionate  heart,  he  will  ex- 
claim : — 

"  O  Nature,  sovereign  of  all  beings  ! 
and  ye,  her  adorable  daughters,  Virtue, 
Reason,  and  Truth !  remain  for  ever 
our  only  Divinities :  it  is  to  you  that 
belong  the  praises  of  the  human  race  : 
to  you  appertains  the  homage  of  the 
earth.  Show  us,  then,  O  Nature  !  that 
which  man  ought  to  do,  in  order  to  ob- 
tain the  happiness  which  thou  makest 
him  desire.  Virtue!  Animate  him  with 
thy  beneficent  fire.  Reason  !  Conduct 
his  uncertain  steps  through  the  paths 
of  life.  Truth !  Let  thy  torch  illumine 
his  intellect,  dissipate  the  darkness  of 
his  road.  Unite,  O  assisting  Deities  ! 
your  powers,  in  order  to  submit  the 
hearts  of  mankind  to  your  dominion. 
Banish  errour  from  our  mind ;  wicked- 
ness from  our  hearts  ;  confusion  from 
our  footsteps  ;  cause  knowledge  to  ex- 
tend its  salubrious  reign ;  goodness  to 
occupy  our  minds ;  serenity  to  dwell 
in  our  bosoms.  Let  imposture,  con- 
founded, never  again  dare  to  show  its 
head.  Let  our  eyes,  so  long  either 
dazzled  or  blindfolded,  be  at  length 
fixed  upon  those  objects  we  ought  to 
seek.  Dispel  for  ever  those  mists  of 
ignorance,  those  hideous  phantoms,  to- 
gether with  those  seducing  chimeras, 


which  only  serve  to  lead  us  astray. 
Extricate  us  from  that  dark  abyss  into 
which  we  are  plunged  by  superstition ; 
overthrow  the  fatal  empire  of  delusion ; 
crumble  the  throne  of  falsehood  ;  wrest 
from  their  polluted  hands  the  power 
they  have  usurped.  Command  men, 
without  sharing  your  authority  with 
mortals :  break  the  chains  that  bind 
them  down  in  slavery  :  tear  away  the 
bandeau  by  which  they  are  hoodwink- 
ed ;  allay  the  fury  that  intoxicates 
them  ;  break  in  the  hands  of  sanguin- 
ary, lawless  tyrants,  that  iron  sceptre 
with  which  they  are  crushed  ;  exile  to 
the  imaginary  regions,  from  whence 
fear  has  imported  them,  those  Gods 
by  whom  they  are  afflicted.  Inspire 
the  intelligent  being  with  courage  ;  in- 
fuse energy  into  his  system,  that,  at 
length,  he  may  feel  his  own  dignity  ; 
that  he  may  dare  to  love  himself;  to 
esteem  his  own  actions  when  they 
are  worthy  ;  that  a  slave  only  to  your 
eternal  laws,  he  may  no  longer  fear 
to  enfranchise  himself  from  all  other 
trammels  ;  that  blest  with  freedom,  he 
may  have  the  wisdom  to  cherish  his 
fellow-creature  ;  and  become  happy  by 
learning  to  perfection  his  own  condi- 
tion ;  instruct  him  in  the  great  lesson, 
that  the  high  road  to  felicity,  is  pru- 
dently to  partake  himself,  and  also  to 
cause  others  to  enjoy,  the  rich  banquet 
which  thou,  O  Nature  !  hast  so  bounti- 
fully set  before  him.  Console  thy 
children  for  those  sorrows  to  which 
their  destiny  submits  them,  by  those 
pleasures  which  wisdom  allows  them 
to  partake ;  teach  them  to  yield  silently 
to  necessity.  Conduct  them  without 
alarm  to  that  period  which  all  beings 
must  find ;  let  them  learn  that  time 
changes  all  things,  that  consequently 
they  are  made  neither  to  avoid  death 
nor  to  fear  its  arrival." 


THE     END. 


APPENDIX. 


THE 

TRUE   MEANING 

OF  THE 

SYSTEM   OF  NATURE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

MAN,  Unfortunately  for  himself, 
wishes  to  exceed  the  limits  of  his 
sphere,  and  to  transport  himself  be- 
youd  the  visible  world.  He  neglects 
experience,  and  feeds  himself  with 
conjectures.  Early  prepossessed  by 
artful  men  against  reason,  he. neglects 
its  cultivation.  Pretending  to  know 
his  fate  in  another  world,  he  is  ina- 
tentive  to  his  happiness  in  the  present. 

The  author's  object  is,  to  recal  man 
to  reason  by  rendering  it  dear  to  him, — 
to  dissipate  the  clouds  which  obscure 
the  way  to  this  happiness, — to  offer 
reflections  useful  to  his  peace  and  com- 
fort, and  favourable  to  mental  improve- 
ment. 

So'  far  from  wishing  to  destroy  the 
duties  of  morality^  it  is  the  author's 
object  to  give  them  double  force,  and 
establish  them  on  the  altar  of  virtue, 
which  alone  merits  the  homage  of  man- 
kind. 


CHAPTER  I. 

On  Nature. 

MAN  is  the  work  of  nature,  and  sub- 
ject to  her  laws,  from  which  he  cannot 
free  himself,  nor  even  exceed  in  thought. 
A  being  formed  by  nature,  he  is  nothing 
beyond  the  great  whole  of  which  he 
forms  a  part.  Beings  supposed  to  be 
superior  to,  or  distinguished  from,  na- 
ture, are  mere  chimeras,  of  which  no 
real  idea  can  be  formed. 


Man  is  a  being  purely  physical.  The 
moral  man  is  only  the  physical  man, 
considered  in  a  certain  point  of  view. 
His  organization  is  the  work  of  nature ; 
his  visible  actions  and  invisible  move- 
ments are  equally  the  natural  effects 
and  consequences  of  his  mechanism. 
His  inventions  are  the  effect  of  his 
essence.  His  ideas  proceed  from  the 
same  cause.  Art  is  only  nature,  acting 
by  instruments  which  she  has  herself 
made — all  is  the  impulse  of  nature. 

It  is  to  physics  and  experience,  that 
man  in  all  his  researches  ought  to  have 
recourse.  Nature  acts  by  simple  laws. 
When  we  quit  experience,  imagination 
leads  us  astray.  'Tis  from  want  of 
experience  that  men  have  formed  wrong 
ideas  of  matter.* 


*  Men  have  fallen  into  a  thousand  errours, 
by  ascribing  an  existence  to  the  objects  of  our 
interior  perceptions,  distinct  from  ourselves, 
in  the  same  manner  as  we  conceive  them 
separately.  It  becomes  of  importance,  there- 
fore, to  examine  the  nature  of  the  distinctions 
which  subsist  among  those  objects. 

Some  of  these  are  so  distinct  from  others, 
that  they  cannot  exist  together.  The  surface 
of  a  body  cannot  at  the  same  time  be  both 
white  and  black  in  all  its  parts :  nor  can  one 
body  be  more  or  less  extended  than  another 
of  the  same  dimensions.  Two  ideas,  thus 
distinguished,  necessarily  exclude  one  an- 
other :  since  the  existence  of  one  of  them 
necessarily  infers  the  non-existence  of  the 
other,  ana,  consequently,  its  own  separate 
and  independent  existence.  This  class  I  calL 
real  or  exclusive  existence. 

But  there  is  another  class,  which,  in  op- 
position to  the  former,  I  call  fictitious,  or 
imaginary  existence.  While  a  body  is  passing 


340 


APPENDIX. 


Indolence  is  gratified  in  following 
example:  habit,  and  authority,  rather 
than  experience,  which  demands  acti- 
vity, or  reason,  which  requires  reflec- 
tion. Hence  an  aversion  to  every  thing 
that  deviates  from  ordinary  rules,  and 

from  one  colour  or  shape  to  another,  we  suc- 
cessively experience  different  sensations  :  yet 
it  is  evident  that  we  remain  the  same,  it  only 
being  that  body  which  changes  colour  or 
shape.  But  the  body  is  neither  its  colour  nor 
shape,  since  it  could  exist  without  them,  and 
still  be  the  same  body.  Neither  is  the  shape 
or  figure  of  a  body,  its  colour,  motion,  extent, 
nor  hardness  ;  because  those  qualities  are  dis- 
tinct from  each  other,  and  any  of  them  can 
exist  separate  from  and  independent  of  the 
rest.  But  as  they  can  exist  together,  they 
are  not  distinguished  like  those  wnich  cannot 
exist  together  at  the  same  time.  They  can- 
not have  a  separate  and  distinct  existence 
from  bodies  whose  properties  they  are.  The 
same  power  by  which  a  white  body  exists,  is 
that  by  which  its  whiteness  also  exists.  What 
we  call  whiteness  cannot  exist  of  itself,  sep- 
arate from  a  body.  This  is  the  distinction 
between  things  capable  of  being  separated, 
though  found  joined  together,  and  which, 
though  exciting  in  us  different  impressions, 
may  yet  be  separately  considered,  and  be- 
come so  many  distant  objects  of  perception. 
This  class  of  imaginary  or  fictitious  objects, 
existing  only  in  our  mind,  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  the  first  class  of  objects,  which 
have  a  real,  exclusive,  and  independent  ex- 
istence of  their  own. 

Innumerable  errpurs  have  arisen- by  con- 
founding those  distinctions.  In  mathematics, 
for  example,  we  hear  every  moment  of  points 
and  lines,  or  extensions  without  length,  and 
surfaces  having  length  and  breadth  without 
depth, — though  geometers  themselves  con- 
fess, that  such  bodies  neither  do  nor  can  ex- 
ist, but  in  the  mind,  while  every  body  in  na- 
ture is  truly  extended  in  every  sense.  Un- 
skilful materialists  have  fallen  into  gross  ab- 
surdities, by  mistaking,  for  real  and  distinct 
existences,  the  different  properties  of  exten- 
sion, separately  considered  by  mathemati- 
cians. Hence,  they  formed  the  world  of 
atoms,  or  small  bodies,  without  either  bulk 
or  extension,  yet  possessing  infinite  hardness, 
and  a  great  variety  of  forms.  Bodies  such 
as  those  can  only  exist  in  the  minds  of  atom- 
ists. 

If  even  able  men  can  be  so  clumsily  de- 
ceived, by  not  distinguishing  between  the  real 
existence  of  externajbodies,  and  the  fictitious 
existence  of  perceptions,  existing  only  in  the 
mind,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  that  a  mul- 
titude of  errours  should  have  arisen,  in  com- 
paring, not  only. those  perceptions  themselves, 
but  even  their  mutual  relations  with  one  an- 
other. 

I  do  not  say,  that  sensations  can  exist  sep- 
arate from  ourselves.  The  sentiments  of 
pleasure  and  pain,  though  not  distinct  from 
him  who  feels  them,  certainly  are  so4rom  my 
mind,  which  perceives,  reflects  upon,  and 


an  implicit  respect  for  ancient  insti- 
tutions. Credulity  proceeds  from  in- 
experience. By  consulting  experi- 
ence and  contemplating  the  universe, 
we  shall  only  find  in  it  matter  and 
motion. 

compares  them  with  other  sensations.  As 
the  sentiment  of  real  existence  is,  clearer  than 
that  of  imaginary  or  fictitious,  we  imagine 
that  a  similar  distinction  exists  between  "all 
the  objects  that  the  mind  conceives.  Hence 
the  operations  of  mind,  and  its  different  prop- 
erties, -have  been  considered,  like  real  beings, 
as  so  many  entities  having  a  real  existence 
of  their  own,  and  have  thus  acquired  a  physi- 
cal existence,  winch  they  dp  not  possess  of 
themselves.  Hence  our  mind  has  been  dis-  . 
tinguished  from  ourselves,  as  the  part  is  from 
its  whole.  The  mmd  itself  has  been  separ- 
ated from  the  soul,  or  that  which  animates, 
from  that  which  makes  us  live.  In  the  mind, 
a  distinction  has  been  made  between  the  un- 
derstanding and  the  will ;  in  other  words, 
between  that  which  perceives  and  that  which 
wills,  that  which  wills  and  that  which  wills 
not.  Our  perceptions  have  been  distinguished 
from  ourselves,  and  from  one  another ;  hence 
thoughts,  ideas,  &c.,  which  are  nothing  but 
the  faculty  of  perception  itself,  viewed  in  re- 
lation to  some  of  its  functions.  All  these,  how- 
ever, are  only,  modifications  of  our  essence, 
and  no  more  distinguished  from  themselves, 
nor  from  us,  than  extension,  solidity,  shape, 
colour,  motion,  or  rest,  from  the  same  body. 
Yet  absolute  distinctions  have  been  made  be- 
tween them,  and  they  have  been  considered 
as  so  many  small  entities,  of  which  we  form 
the  assemblage.  According,  therefore,  to 
those  philosophers,  we  are  composed  of  thou- 
sands of  little  bodies,  as  distinct  from  one 
another  as  the  different  trees  in  a  forest,  each 
of  which  exists  by  a  particular  and  independ- 
ent power. 

With  regard  to  things  really  distinct  from 
us,  not  only  their  properties,  but  even  the  rela- 
tions of  those  properties,  have  been  distinguish- 
ed from  themselves,  and  from  one  another; 
and  to  these  a  real  existence  has  been  given. 
It  was  observed," that  bodies  act  upon,  strike 
and  repel  one  another,  and,  in  consequence 
of  their  action  and  reaction,  changes  were 
produced  in  them.  When,  for  example,  I  put 
my  hand  to  the  fire,  I  feel  what  is  called  heat : 
in  this  case,  fire  is  the  cause,  and  heat  the 
effect.  To  abridge  language,  general  terms, 
applying  to  particular  ideas  of  a  similar  na- 
ture, were  invented.  The  body  that  produces 
the  change  in  another,  was  called  the  cau?e, — 
and  tli!'  body  suHi'ring  the  change,  the  effect. 
As  those  terms  produce  in  the  mind  some  idea 
of  existence,  action,  reaction,  and  change,  the 
habit  of  using  'them  makes  men  believe  that 
they  have  a  clear  and  distinct  perception  of 
them.  By  the  continual  use  of  these  words, 
me  nhave  at  length  believed,  that  there  can 
exist  a  cause,  neither  a  substance,  nor  a  body ; 
a  cause,  though  distinct  from  all  matter, 
without  either  action  or  reaction,  yet  capable 
of  producing  every  supposable  effect. 


APPENDIX. 


341 


CHAPTER  II. 


Of  Motion  and  its  Origin.     , 

IT  is  motion  Avhich  alone  forms  the 
connexion-  fang  and 

external  and  internal  objects. 

A  cause  is  a  being  that  puts  another 
in  motion,  or  which  produces  the  change 
that  one  body  effects  upon  another  by 
means  of  motion.  We  only  know  the 
manner  in  which  a  body  acts  upon  us 
by  the  change  it  produces.  It  is  from 
actions  only  that  we  can  judge  of  in- 
terior motions,  as  thoughts,  and  other 
sentiments — when  we  see  a  man  flying 
we  conclude  him  to  be  afraid. 

The  motion  of  bodies  is  a  necessary 
consequence  of  their  essence.  Every 
being  has  laws  of  motion_peiculiar_Jp 
itself. 

Every  body  in  the  universe  is  in 
motion.  Action,  is  essential jtojnattBr. 
All  beings  hut  come  into  existence,ln- 
crease,  diminish,  and  ultimately  perish ; 
metals,  minerals,  &c..  are  all  in  action. 
The  stones  which  lie  upon  the  ground 
act  upon  it  by  pressure.  Our  sense  of 
smell  is  acted  upon  by  emanations  from 
the  most  compact  bodies. 

Motion  is  inherent  in  nature,  which 
is  the  great  whole,  out  of  which  nothing 
can  exist,  and  is  essential  to  it.  Mat- 
ter moves  by  its  own  energy,  and  pos- 
sesses properties,  according  to  which 
it  acts. 

In  attributing  the  motion  of  matter 
to  a  cause,  we  must  suppose,  that  mat- 
ter itself  has  come  into  existence — a 
thing  impossible  ;  for  since  it  cannot 
be  annihilated,  how  can  we  imagine  it 
to  have  had  a  beginning  1 

Whence  has  matter  come  ?  It  has 
always  existed.  What  is  the  original 
cause  of  its  motion  ?  Matter  has  al- 
ways been  in  motion,  as  motion  is  a 
consequence  of  its  existence,  and  ex- 
istence always  supposes  properties  in 
the  existing  body.  Since  matter  pos- 
sesses properties,  its  manner  of  action 
necessarily  flows  from  its  form  of  ex- 
istence. Hence  a  hewvy  body  must 
fall. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Of  Matter  and  Us  Motion. 

THE  changes,  forms,  and  modifica- 
tions  of  matter   alone   proceed   from 


motion.  By  motion,  every  body  in 
nature  is  formed,  changed,  enlarged, 
diminished,  and  destroyed. 

Motion  produces  a  perpetual  trans- 
migration, exchange,  and  circulation 
of  the  particles  of  matter.  These 
particles  separate  themselves  to  form 
new  bodies.  One  body  nourishes  other 
bodies;  and  those  afterwards  restore 
to  the  general  mass  the  elements  which 
they  had  borrowed  from  it.  Suns  are 
produced  by  the  combinations  of  mat- 
ter ;  and  those  wonderful  bodies,  which 
man  in  his  transitory  existence  only 
sees  for  a  moment,  will  one  da/,  per- 
haps, be  dispersed  by  motion. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Laws  of  Motion  common  to  all  Beings — At- 
traction and  Repulsion — Necessity. 

WE  consider  eflects  as  natural,  when 
we  see  their  acting  cause.  When  we 
see  an  extraordinary  effect,  whose  cause 
is  unknown  to  us,  we  have  recourse  to 
imagination,  which  creates  chimeras. 

The  visible  end  of  all  the  motions 
of -bodies,  is  the  preservation  of  their 
actual  form  of  existence,  attracting 
what  is  favourable,  and  repelling  what 
is  prejudicial  to  it.  From  the  moment 
of  existence,  we  experience  motions 
peculiar  to  a  determined  essence1. 

Every  cause  produces  an  effect,  and 
there  cannot  be  an  effect  without  a 
cause.  If  every  motion,  therefore,  be 
ascribable  to  a  cause ;  and  these  causes 
being  determined  by  their  nature,  es- 
sence and  properties ;  we  must  con- 
clude, that  they  are  all  necessary,  and 
that  every  being,  in  nature,  in  its  given 
properties  and  circumstances,  can  only 
act  as  it  does.  Necessity  is  the  infalli- 
ble an'd  constant  tie  of  causes  to  their 
effects :  and  this  irresist&le  power, 
universal  necessity,  is  only  a  conse- 
quence of  the  nature  of  things,  in  vir- 
tue qff  which  the  whole  acts  by  immu- 
table laws.* 

-*  Changes  are  produced  in  bodies  by  their 
action  and  reaction  upon  one  another.  The 
•sanje  body,  at  present  a  cause,  was  previous- 
ly an  effect ;  or,  in  other  words,  the  body 
which- produces  a  change  in  another,  by  act- 
i^ig  upon  it,  has  itself  undergone  a  change  bjr 
the  action  of  another  body.  One  body  may, 
in  relation  to  others,  be,  at  the  same  time, 


342 


APPENDIX. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Of  Order  and  Disordei — Intelligence  and 
Chance. 

THE  view  of  the  regular  motions  of 
nature  produces,  in  the  human  mind, 
the  idea  of  order.  This  word  only  ex- 
presses a  thing  relative  to  ourselves. 
The  idea  of  order  or  disorder  is  no 
proof  that  they  really  exist  in  nature, 
since  there  every  thing  is  necessary. 
Disorder  in  relation  to  a  being  is  no- 
thing but  its  passage  into  a  new  order 
or  form  of  existence.  Thus,  in  our 
eyes,  death  is  the  greatest  of  all  dis- 
orders ;  but  death  only  changes  our 
essence.  We  are  not  less  subject  af- 
terwards to  the  laws  of  motion. 

Intelligence  is  called  the  power  of 
acting  according  to  an  end,  which  we 
know  the  being  possesses  to  whom  we 
ascribe  it.  We  deny  its  existence  in 

both  cause  and  effect.  While  I  push  forward 
a  body  with  the  stick  in  my  hand,  the  motion 
of  the  suck,  which  is  the  effect  of  my  impulse, 
is  the  cause  of  the  progression  of  the  body 
that  is  pushed.  The  word  caiise±  .only  de- 
notes the  perception  of  the  chancre  which  one 
body  produces  in  another,  considered  in  rela- 
tion to  the  body  that  produces  it ;  and  the 
word  effect^  signifies  nothing  more  than  the 
perception  of  the  same  change,  considered 
relatively  to  the  body  that  suffers  it. ~  The 
absurdity  of  supposing  the  existence  of  inde- 
pendent and  absolute  causes,  which  neither 
are  nor  can  be  effects,  must  appear  obvious  to 
every  unbiassed  understanding. 

The  infinite  progression  of  bodies  which 
have  been  in  succession,  cause  and  effect, 
soon  fatigued  men  desirous  of  discovering  a 
general  cause  for  every  particular  effect.  They 
all  at  once,  therefore,  ascended  to  a  first 
cause,  supposed  to  be  universal,  in  relation 
to  which  every  particular  cause  is  an  effect, 
though  not  itself  the  effect  of  any  cause.  The 
only  idea  they  can  give  of  it  is,  that  it  pro- 
duced all  things  ;  not  only  the  form  of  their 
existence,  but  even  their  existence  itself  It 
is  not,  according  to  them,  either  a  body,  or  a 
being  like  particular  beings ;  in  a  word,  it  is 
the  universal  cause.  And  this  is  all  they  can 
say  about  it. 

From  what  has  been  said,  it  must  appear, 
that  this  universal  cause  is  but  a  chimera,  a 
mere  phantom,  at  most  an  imaginary  or  ficti- 
tious being,  only  existing  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  consider  it.  It  is,  however,  the  Destiny 
of  the  Greeks, — the  God  of  philosophers,  Jews, 
and  Christians, — the  Benevolent  Spirit  of  the 
new  Parisian  sect  of  Saint-Simonians ;  the 
only  sect  which  has  ever  yet  attempted  to 
found  a  worship  upon  principles  beanng  any 
resemblance  to  morality,  reason,  or  common 
sense. 

Those  who,  without  acknowledging;  this 
universal  cause,  content  themselves  with  par- 


beings  whose  forms  of  action  are  dif- 
ferent from  ours. 

When  we  do  not  perceive  the  con- 
nexion of  certain  effects  with  their 
causes,  we  attribute  them  to  chance. 
When  we  see,  or  think  we  see,  what 
is  called  order,  we  ascribe  it  to  an  in- 
telligence, a  quality  borrowed  from  our- 
selves, and  from  the  particular  form  in 
which  we  are  affected. 

An  intelligent  being  thinks,  wills, 
and  acts,  to  arrive  at  an  end.  For  this 
purpose,  organs,  and  an  end  similar  to 
our  own,  are  necessary.  They  would 
above  all  be  necessary  to  an  intelli- 
gence supposed  to  govern  nature,  as 
without  organs,  there  can  neither,  be 
ideas,  intuition,  thought,  will,  plan  nor 
action.  Matter,  when  combined  in  a 
certain  manner,  assumes  action^  intel- 
ligence, and- life.* 

ticular  causes,  have  generally  distinguished 
them  from  material  substances.  Seeing  the 
same  change  often  produced  by  different 
actions  or  causes,  they  conceived  the  exist- 
ence of  particular  causes,  distinct  from  sensi- 
ble bodies.  Some  have  ascribed  to  them  in- 
telligence and  will, — hence  gods,  demons, 
genii,  good  and  bad  spirits.  Others,  who  can- 
not conceive  the  existence  of  a  mode  of  ac- 
tion different  from  their  own,  have  imagined 
certain  virtues  to  proceed  from  the  influence 
of  the  stars,  chance,  and  a  thousand  other 
dark,  unintelligible  terms,  which  signify  no- 
thing more  than  blind  and  necessary  causes. 

*  Among  the  innumerable  errours  into 
which  men  are  continually  falling,  by  con- 
founding fictitious  with  real  objects,  is  that 
of  supposing  an  infinite  power,  cause,  wis- 
dom, or  intelligence,  to  exist,  from  only  con- 
sidering the  properties  of  wisdom,  power,  and 
intelligence,  in  the  beings  whom  they  see. 
The  term  infinite,  is  totally  incompatible  with 
the  existence  of  any  thing  finite,  positive  or 
real :  in  other  words,  it  carries  with  it  the  im- 
possibility of  real  existence.  Those  who  call 
a  power,  quantity,  or  number  infinite,  speak 
of  something  undetermined,  of  which  no  just 
idea  can  be  formed ;  because,  however  ex- 
tended the  idea  may  be,  it  must  fall  short  of 
the  thing  represented.  An  infinite  number, 
for  example,  can  neither  be  conceived  nor  ex- 
pressed. Admitting  for  a  moment,  the  ex- 
istence of  such  a  number,  it  may  be  asked, 
whether  a  certain  part,  the  half  for  example, 
may  not  be  taken  from  it?  This  half  is  finite, 
ana  may  be  counted  and  expressed  ;  but  by 
doubling  it,  we  make  a  sum  equal  tP  an  infi- 
nite number,  which  will  then  be  determined, 
and  to  which  a  unit  may  at  least  be  added. 
This  sum  will  then  be  greater  than  it  was  be- 
fore, though  infinite,  or  that  to  which  nolhing 
could  be  added,  yet  we  can  make  no  addition 
to  it !  It  is,  therefore,  at  the  same  time,  both 


APPENDIX. 


343 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Of  Man,  his  Physical  and  Moral  Distinc- 
tions— His  Origin. 

MAN  is  always  subject  to  necessity. 
His  temperament  is  independent  of 
him,  yet  it  influences  his  passions. 
His  blood  more  or  less  abundant  or 
warm,  his  nerves  more  or  less  relaxed, 
the  aliments  upon  which  he  feeds,  all 
act  upon  him  and  influence  him. 

Man  is  an  organized  whole,  com- 
posed of  different- matters,  which  act 
according  to  their  respective  properties. 
The  difficulty  of  discovering  the  causes 
of  his  motions  and  ideas,  produced  the 
division  of  his  essence  into  two  na- 
tures. He  invented  words,  because 
ignorant  of  things. 

Man,  like  every  thing  else,  is  a  pro- 
duction of  nature.  What  is  his  origin? 
We  want  experience  to  answer  the 
question.  N 

Has  he  always  existed,  or  is  he  an 
instantaneous  production  of  nature? 
Either  of  the  cases  is  possible.  Mat- 
ter is  eternal,  but  its  forms  and  com- 
binations are  transitory.  It  is  probable, 
that  he  was  produced  at  a  particular 
period  of  our  globe,  upon  which  he, 
like  its  other  productions,  varies  ac- 
cording to  the  difference  of  climate. 
He  was  doubtless  produced  male  and 
female,  and  will  exist  so  long  as  the 
globe  remains  in  its  present  state. 
When  that  is  changed,  the  human 
species  must  give  way  to  new  beings, 
capable  of  incorporating  themselves 
with  the  new  qualities  which  the  globe 
will  then  possess. 

When  we  are  unable  to  account  for 
the  production  of  man,  to  talk  of  God 
and  of  creation,  is  but  confessing  our 
ignorance  of  the  energy  of  nature. 

infinite  and  finite,  and  consequently  possesses 
properties  exclusive  of  one  another.  We  might, 
with  equal  propriety,  conceive  the  existence  of 
a  white  body  which  is  not  white,  or,  in  other 
words,  a  mere  chimera;  all  we  can  say  of 
which  is.  that  it  neither  does  nor  can  exist. 

What  has  been  said  of  an  infinite  number, 
equally  applies  either  to  an  infinite  cause,  in- 
telligence, or  power.  As  there  are  different 
degrees  of  causation,  intelligence,  and  power, 
those  degrees  must  be  considered  as  units,  the 
sum  of  which  will  express  the  quantity  of  the 
power,  and  intelligence,  of  such  causes.  An 
infinity  of  power,  action,  or  intelligence,  to 
which  nothing  can  be  added,  nor  conceived, 
is  impossible,  never  has  existed,  and  never 
can  exist. 


Man  has  no  right  to  believe  himself 
a  privileged  being  in  nature.  He  is 
subject  to  the  same  vicissitudes  as  its 
other  productions.  The  i('ea  °f  human 
excellence  is  merely  'bunded  on  the 
the  partiality  which;  man  feels  for  him- 
self. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

Of  Oie  Soul  and  its  Spirituality. 

WHAT  is  called  the  soul  moves  with 
us.  Now,  motion  is  a  property  of  mat- 
ter. The  soul  also  shows  itself  ma- 
terial 'm  the  invincible  obstacles  which 
it  encounters  on  the  part  of  the  body. 
If  the  soul  causes  me  to  move  my  arm 
when  there  is  no  obstacle  in  the  way, 
it  ceases  doing  so  when  the  arm  is 
pressed  down  by  a  heavy  weight. 
Here  then  is  a  mass  of  matter  which 
annihilates  an  impulse  given  by  a  spi- 
ritual cause,  which,  being  unconnected 
with  matter,  ought  to  meet  with  no 
resistance  from  it. 

Motion  supposes  extent  and  solidity 
in  the  body  that  is  moved.  When  we 
ascribe  action  to  a  cause,  we  must 
therefore  consider  that  cause  to  be  ma- 
terial. 

While  I  walk  forward,  I  do  not  leave 
my  soul  behind  me.  Soul,  therefore, 
possesses  one  quality  in  common  with 
the  body  and  peculiar  to  matter.  The 
soul  makes  a  part  of  the  body,  and  ex- 
periences all  its  vicissitudes,  in  passing 
through  a  state  of  infancy  and  of  de- 
bility, in  partaking  of  its  pleasures  and 
pains ;  and  with  the  body  exhibiting 
marks  of  dulness,  debility,  and  death, 
In  short,  it  is  only  the  body  viewed  in 
relation  to  some  of  its  functions. 

What  sort  of  substance  is  it  which 
can  neither  be  seen  nor  felt  ?  An 
immaterial  being,  yet  acting  upon 
matter !  How  can  the  body  inclose 
a  fugitive  being,  which  eludes  all  the 
senses. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Of  the,  Intellectual  Faculties — All  dcnvtd 
from  Sensation. 

SENSATION  is  a  manner  of  being  af- 
fected, peculiar  to  certain  organs  of 


344 

animated   bodies,   occasioned 
presence  of  a  material  object. 


APPENDIX. 

by   the 
Sensi- 


bility is  the  result  of  an  arrangement 
peculiar  to  animals.  The  organs  re- 
ciprocally communicate  impressions  to 
one  another. 

Every  sensation  is  a  shock  given  to 
organs  ;  a  perception,  that  shock  com- 
municated to  the  brain  ;  an  idea  the 
image  of  the  object  which  occasion- 
ed the  sensation  and  perception.  If 
our  organs,  therefore,  be  not  moved, 
we  can  neither  have  perceptions  nor 
ideas. 


*  Man  is  born  with  a  disposition  to  know, 
or  to  feel  and  receive  impressions  from  the 
action  of  other  bodies  upon  him.  Those  im- 
pressions are  called  sensations,  perceptions, 
or  ideas.  These  impressions  leave  a  trace  or 
vestige  of  themselves,  which  are  sometimes 
excited  in  the  absence  of  the  objects  which 
occasioned  them.  This  is  the  faculty  of  me- 
mory, or  the  sentiment  by  which  a  man  has 
a  knowledge  of  former  impressions,  accom- 
panied by  a  perception  of  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  time  he  received,  and  that  in  which 
he  remembers  them. 

Every  impression  produces  an  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  sensation.  When  lively,  we  call 
it  pleasure,  or  pain ;  when  feeble,  satisfaction, 
ease,  inconvenience,  or  uneasiness.  The  first 
of  these  sentiments  impels  us  towards  objects, 
and  makes  us  use  efforts  to  join  and  attach 
them  to  ourselves,  to  augment  and  prolong 
the  force  of  the  sensation,  to  renew  and  recall 
it  when  it  ceases.  We  love  objects  which 
produce  such  sensations,  and  are  happy  in 
possessing  them :  we  seek  and  desire  their 
possession,  and  are  miserable  upon  losing 
them.  The  sentiment  of  pain  induces  us  to 
fly  and  shun  objects  which  produce  it,  to  fear, 
hate,  and  detest  their  presence. 

We  are  so  constituted,  as  to  love  pleasure  ] 
and  hate  pain ;  and  this  law,  engraven  by 
nature  on  the  heart  of  every  human  being,  is  I 
so  powerful,  that  in  every  action  of  life  it 
forces  our  obedience.  Pleasure  is  attached  to 
every  action  necessary  to  the  preservation  of 
life,  and  pain  to  those  of  an  opposite  nature. 
Love  of  pleasure,  and  hatred  of  pain,  induce 
us,  without  either  examination  or  reflection, 
to  act  so  as  to  obtain  possession  of  the  former 
and  the  absence  of  the  latter. 

The  impressions  once  received,  it  is  not  in 
man's  power  either  to  prolong  or  to  render 
them  durable.  There  are  certain  limits  be- 
yond which  human  efforts  cannot  exceed. 
Some  impressions  are  more  poignant  than 
others,  and  render  us  either  happy  or  misera- 
ble. An  impression,  pleasant  at  its  com- 
mencement, frequently  produces  pain  in  its 
progress.  Pleasure  and  pain  are  so  much 
blended  together,  that  it  is  seldom  that  the 
one  is  felt  without  some  part  of  the  other. 

Man,  like  every  other  animal,  upon  coming 
into  the  world,  abandons  himself  to  present 
impressions*  without  foreseeing  their  conse- 


Mernory  produces  imagination.  We 
form  a  picture  of  the  things  we  have 
seen,  and,  by  imagination,  transport 
ourselves  to  what  we  do  not  see. 

Passions  are  movements  of  th£  will, 
determined-  by"the  objects  'which  "act 
uponjt,-  according  to  our  actuai  form 
of  existence. 

The  intellectual  faculties  attributfd 
to  the  soul,  are  modifications  ascriballe 
to  the  objects  which  strike  the  senses. 
Hence  a  trembling  in  the  members, 
when  the  brain  is  affected  by  the  move- 
ment called  fear.* 

quences  or  issue.  Foresight  can  only  be'  ac- 
quired by  experience,  and  reflection  upon  the 
impressions  communicated  to  .u?  by  objects. 
Some  men,  in~fliis  respect,  continue  'infants 
'all  their  lives,  never  acquiring  the  faculty  of 
foresight ;  and  even  among  the  most  wise, 
few  are  to  be  found,  upon  whom,  at  some 
periods  of  life,  certain  violent  impressions, 
those  of  love,  for  example,  the  most  violent 
of  all,  have  not  reduced  into  a  state  of  child- 
hood, foreseeing  nothing,  and  permitting  them- 
selves to  be  guided  by  momentary  impulses. 

As  we  advance  in  years,  we  acquire  more 
experience  in  comparing  new  and  unknown 
objects  with  the  idea  or  image  of  those  whose 
impression  memory  has  preserved.  We  judge 
of  the  unknown  from  the  known,  and  conse- 
quently, know  whether  those  ought  to  be 
sought  for  or  avoided. 

.The  faculty  of  comparing  present  with  ab- 
sent objects,  which  exist  only  in  the  memory, 
constitutes  reason.  It  is  the  balance  with 
which  we  weigh  things ;  and  by  recalling 
those  that  are  absent,  we  can  judge  of  the 
present,  by  their  relations  to  one  another. 
This  is  the  boasted  reason  which  man,  upon 
I  know  not  what  pretext,  arrogates  to  him- 
self to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  animals. 
We  see  all  animals  possessing  evident  marks 
of  judgment  and  comparison.  Fishes  resort 
to  the  same  spot  at  the  precise  hour  in  which 
they  have  been  accustomed  to  receive  food. 
The  weaker  animals  form  themselves  into 
societies  for  mutual  defence.  The  sagacity  of 
the  dog' is  generally  known,  and  the  foresight 
of  the  bee  has  long  been  proverbial.  The 
bears  of  Siberia,  and  the  elephants  of  India, 
seem  to  possess  a  decided  superiority  in  un- 
derstanding over  the  human  savages  and 
slaves,  who  inhabit  those  countries. 

Some  philosophers  suppose  the  existence 
of  the  sense  of  touch  in  man,  in  a  superior 
degree  than  in  other  animals,  sufficient  to 
account  for  his  superiority  over  them.  If  to 
that  we  add,  the  advantage  of  a  greater  lon- 
gevity, and  a.capacity  of  supporting  existence 
all  over  the  globe,  an  advantage  peculiar  to 
the  human  species,  perhaps  we  have  enume- 
rated all  the  causes  of  superiority  which  man 
ever  received  from  nature,  whatever  may  be 
his  pretensions.  Speech,  or  the  power  of 
communicating  ideas,  is  common  to  almost 
all  animals.  Some  of  them  even  possess  it 


CHAPTER  IX. 


APPENDIX. 

other  men. 


345 


Ditersity  of  the  Intellectual  Faculties —  They 
depend,  like  the  Moral  Qualities,  on  Physi- 
cal Causes. — Natural  Principles  of  So- 
ciety. 

TEMPERAMENT  decides  the  moral 
qualities.  This  we  have  from  nature, 
and  from  our  parents.  Its  different 
kinds  are  determined  by  the  quality  of 
the  air  we  breathe,  by  the  climate  we 
inhabit,  by  education,  and  the  ideas  it 
inspires. 

By  making  mind  spiritual,  we  ad- 
minister to  it  improper  remedies.  Con- 
stitution, which  can  be  changed,  cor- 
rected and  modified,  should  alone  be 
the  object  of  our  attention. 

Genius  is  an  effect  of  physical  sen- 
sibility. It  is  the  faculty  possessed  by 
some  human  beings,  of  seizing,  at  one 
glance,  a  whole  and  its  different  parts. 

By  experience,  we  foresee  effects  not 
yet  felt — hence  prudence  and  foresight. 
Reason  is  nature  modified  by  experi- 
ence. 

The  final  end  of  man  is  self-preser- 
vation, and  rendering  his  existence 
happy.  Experience  shows  him  the 
need  he  stands  in  of  others  to  attain; 
that  9bject,  and  points  out  the  means 
of  rendering  them  subservient  to  his 
views.  He  sees  what  is  agreeable  or; 
disagreeable  to  them,  and  these  ex-! 
periences  give  him  the  idea  of  msticej 
&c.  Neither  virtue  nor  vice  are TfourTd- 
ed  on  conventions,  but  only  rest  upon 
relations  subsisting  among  all  human 
beings. 

Men's  duties  to  one  another  arise 
from  the  necessity  of  employing  those 
means  which  tend  to  the  end  proposed 
by  nature.  It  is  by  promoting  the  hap- 
piness of  other  men,  that  we  engage 
them  to  promote  our  own. 

Politics  should  be  the  art  of  directing 
the  passions  of  men  to  the  good  of  so- 
ciety. Laws  ought  to  have  no  other 
object  than  the  direction  of  their  actions 
also  to  the  same  object. 

Happiness  is  the  uniform  object  of 
all  the  passions.  These  are  legitimate 
and  natural,  and  can  neither  be  called 
good  or  bad,  but  in  so  far  as  they  affect 

in  a  higher  degree  than  man  in  certain  states 
of  society.  Dampierre  describes  a  nation, 
whose  speech  consisted  in  the  howling  of  a 
few  guttural  sounds,  and  whose  vocabulary 
did  not  contain  more  than  thirty  words. 
No.  XL— 14 


To  direct  the  passions  to 
virtue,  it  is  necessary  to  show  man- 
kind advantages  resulting  from  its 
practice. 


CHAPTER  X. 

The  Mind  draws  no  Ideas  from  itself—  We 
have  no  Innate  Ideas. 

IP  we  can  only  form  ideas  of  mate- 
rial objects,  how  can  their  cause  be 
supposed  immaterial  ? 

To  this,  dreams  are  opposed  as  an 
objection ;  but  in  sleep  the  brain  is 
filled  with  a  crowd  of  ideas  which  it 
received  when  awake.  Memory  al- 
ways produces  imagination.  The  cause 
of  dreams  must  be  physical,  as  they 
most  frequently  proceed  from  food,  hu- 
mours, and  fermentations,  unanalogous 
to  the  healthy  state  of  man. 

The  ideas  supposed  to  be  innate, 
are  those  which  are  familiar  to,  and, 
as  it  were,  incorporated  with  us ;  but 
it  is  always  through  the  medium  of  the 
senses  that  we  acquire  them.  They 
are  the  effect  of  education,  example, 
and  habit.  Such  are  the  ideas  formed 
of  God,  which  evidently  proceed  from 
the  descriptions  given  of  him. 

Our  moral  ideas  are  the  fruits  of  ex- 
perience alone.  The  sentiments  of 
paternal  and  filial  affection  are  the  re- 
sult of  reflection  and  habit. 

Man  acquires  all  his  notions  and 
ideas.  The  words  beauty,  intelligence, 
order,  virtue,  grief,  pain  and  pleasure, 
are,  to  rrte,  void  of  meaning,  unless 
I  compare  them  with  other  objects. 
Judgment  presupposes  sensibility ;  and 
judgment  itself  is  the  fruit  of  com- 
parison. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Of  the  System  of  Man's  Liberty. 

MAN  is  a  physical  being,  subject  to 
nature,  and  consequently  to  necessity. 
Born  without  our  consent,  our  organ- 
ization is  independent  of  us,  and  our 
ideas  come  to  us  involuntarily.  Action 
is  the  sequel  of  an  impulse  communi- 
cated by  a  sensible  object. 

I  am  thirsty,  and  see  a  well ;  can  I 
hinder  myself  from  wishing  to  drink 
of  it  ?  But  I  am  told,  the  water  is 
poisoned,  and  I  abstain  from  drinking. 


346 


APPENDIX. 


Will  it  be  said,  that  in  this  case  I  am 
free  1  Thirst  necessarily  determined 
me  to  drink;  the  discovery  of  poison 
necessarily  determines  me  not  to  drink. 
The  second  motive  is  stronger  than 
the  first,  and  I  abstain  from  drinking. 
But  an  imprudent  man,  it  may  be  said, 
"will  drink.  In  this  case  his  first  im- 
pulse will  be  strongest.  In  either  case, 
the  action  is  necessary.  He  who  drinks 
is  a  madman  ;  but  the  actions  of  mad- 
men are  not  less  necessary  than  those 
of  other  men. 

A  debauchee  may  be  persuaded  to 
change  his  conduct.  This  circum- 
stance does  not  prove  that  he  is  free  ; 
but  only,  that  motives  can  be  found, 
sufficient  to  counteract  the  effect  of 
those  which  formerly  acted  upon  him. 

Choice  by  no  means  proves  liberty ; 
since  hesitation  only  finishes  when 
the  will  is  determined  by  sufficient 
motives  ;  and  man  cannot  hinder  mo- 
tives from  acting  upon  his  will.  Can 
he  prevent  himself  from  wishing  to 
possess  what  he  thinks  desirable  ? 
No ;  but  we  are  told  he  can  resist  the 
desire,  by  reflecting  upon  its  conse- 
quences. But  has  he  the  power  of  re- 
flecting ?  Human  actions  are  never 
free;  they  necessarily  proceed  from 
constitution,  and,jiorn  received  idTeas, 
strengthened  by  example, -education, 
and  experience.  The  motive  which 
determines  man  is  always  beyond  his 
power. 

Notwithstanding  the  system  of  hu- 
man liberty,  men  have  universally 
founded  their  systems  upon  necessity 
alone.  If  motives  were  thought  in- 
capable of  influencing  the  will,  why 
make  use  of  morality,  education,  legis- 
lation, and  even  religion  ?  We  estab- 
lish institutions  to  influence  the  will ; 
a  clear  proof  of  our  conviction,  that  they 
must  act  upon  it.  These  institutions 
are  necessity  demonstrated  to  man. 

The  necessity  that  governs  the  phy- 
sical, governs  also  the  moral  world, 
where  every  thing  is  also  subject  to 
the  same  law. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Examination  of  the  Opinions  which  maintain 
the  System  of  Necessity  to  be  Dangerous. 

IF  men's  actions  are  necessary,  by 
what  right,   it  is  asked,  are  crimes 


punished,  since  involuntary  actions  are 
never  the  objects  of  punishment? 

Society  is  an  assemblage  of  sensible 
beings,  susceptible  of  reason,  who  love 
pleasure,  and  hate  pain.  Nothing  more 
is  necessary  to  engage  their  concur- 
rence to  the  general  welfare.  Neces- 
sity is  calculated  to  impress  all  men. 
The  wicked  are  madmen  against  whom 
others  have  a  right  to  defend  them- 
selves. Madness  is  an  involuntary 
and  necessary  state,  yet  madmen  are 
confined.  But  society  should  never 
excite  desires,  and  afterwards  punish 
them.  Robbers  are  often  those  whom 
society  has  deprived  of  the  means  of 
subsistence. 

By  ascribing  all  to  necessity,  we  are 
told  the  ideas  of  just  and  unjust,  of 
good  and  evil,  are  destroyed.  No  j 
though  no  man  acts  from  necessity, 
Kis  actions  are  just  and  good  relative 
to  the  society  whose  welfare  he  pro- 
motes. E^ery  man  is  sensible  that  he 
is  compelled  to  love  a  certain  mode  of 
conduct  in  his  neighbour.  The  ideas 
of  pleasure  and  pain,  vice  and  virtue, 
are  founded  upon  our  own  essence. 

Fatalism  neither  emboldens  crimer 
nor  stifles  remorse,  always  felt  by  the 
wicked.  They  have  long  escaped 
blame  or  punishment,  they  are  not  on 
that  account  better  satisfied  with  them- 
selves. Amidst  perpetual  pangs,  strug- 
gles, and  agitations,  they  can  neither 
find  repose  nor  happiness.  Every  crime 
costs  them  bitter  torments  and  sleep- 
less nights.  The  system  of  fatality 
establishes  morality,  by  demonstrating 
its  necessity. 

Fatality,  it  is  said,  discourages  man, 
paralyzes  his  mind,  and  breaks  the  ties 
that  connect  him  with  society.  But 
does  the  possession  of  sensibility  de- 
pend upon  myself?  My  sentiments- 
are  necessary,  and  founded  upon  na- 
ture. Though  I  know  that  all  men 
must  die,  am  I  on  that  account,  the 
less  affected  by  the  death  of  a  wife,  a 
child,  a  father,  or  a  friend  ? 

Fatalism  ought  to  inspire  man  with 
a  useful  submission  and  resignation  to- 
his  fate.  The  opinion,  that  all  is  ne- 
cessary, will  render  him  tolerant.  He 
will  lament  and  pardon  his  fellow- 
men.  He  will  be  humble  and  modest^ 
from  knowing  that  he  has  received 
every  thing  which  he  possesses. 

Fatalism,  it  is  said,  degrades  mars 


APPENDIX. 


317 


into  a  mere  machine.  Such  language 
is  the  invention  of  ignorance,  respect- 
ing what  constitutes  his  true  dignity. 
Every  machine  is  valuable,  when  it 
performs  well  the  functions  to  which 
it  is  destined.  Nature  is  but  a  ma- 
chine, of  which  the  human  species 
makes  a  part.  Whether  the  soul  be 
mortal  or  immortal,  we  do  not  the  less 
admire  its  grandeur  and  sublimity  in  a 
Socrates. 

The  opinion  of  fatalism  is  advan- 
tageous to  man.  It  prevents  useless 
remorse  from  disturbing  his  mind.  It 
teaches  him  the  propriety  of  enjoying 
with  moderation,  as  pain  ever  accom- 
panies excess.  He  will  follow  the 
paths  of  virtue,  since  every  thing  shows 
its  necessity  for  rendering  him  estima- 
ble to  others  and  contented  with  him- 
self. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Of  the  SouFs  Imrfiortatity —  The  Dogma  of  a 
Future  State— Fear  of  Death. 

THE  soul,  step  by  step,  follows  the 
different  states  of  the  body.  With  the 
body,  it  comes  into  existence,  is  feeble 
in  infancy,  partakes  of  its  pleasures 
and  pains,  its  states  of  health  and  dis- 
ease, activity  or  depression ;  with  the 
body,  is  asleep  or  awake,  and  yet  it 
has  been  supposed  immortal ! 

Nature  inspires  man  with  the  love 
of  existence,  and  the  desire  of  its  con- 
tinuation produced  the  belief  of  the 
soul's  immortality.  Granting  the  de- 
sire of  immortality  to  be  natural,  is 
that  any  proof  of  its  reality  ?  We  de- 
sire the  immortality  of  the  body,  and 
this  desire  is  frustrated.  Why  should 
not  the  desire  of  the  soul's  immortality 
be  frustrated  also? 

The  soul  is  only  the  principle  of 
sensibility.  To  think,  to  suffer,  to 
enjoy,  is  to  feel.  "When  the  body, 
therefore,  ceases  to  live,  it  cannot  ex- 
ercise sensibility.  Where  there  are  no 
senses,  there  can  be  no  ideas.  The 
soul  only  perceives  by  means  of  the 
organs  :  how  then  is  it  possible  for  it 
to  feel,  after  the  dissolution  ? 

We  are  told  of  divine  power — but 
divine  power  cannot  make  a  thing  ex- 
ist and  not  exist  at  the  same  time.  It 


cannot  make  the^soul  think  without  the 
means  necessary  to  acquire  thoughts. 

The  destruction  of  his  body  always 
alarms  man,  notwithstanding  the  opin- 
ion of  the  soul's  immortality  ;  a  sure 
proof  that  he  is  more  affected  by  the 
present  reality,  than  by  the  hope  of  a 
distant  futurity. 

The  very  idea  of  death  is  revolting 
to  man,  yet  he  does  every  thing  in  his 
power  to  render  it  more  frightful.  It 
is  a  period  which  delivers  us  up  de- 
fenceless to  the  undescribable  rigours 
of  a  pitiless  despot.  This,  it  is  said, 
is  the  strongest  rampart  against  human 
irregularities.  But  what  effect  have 
those  ideas  produced  upon  those  who 
are,  or  at  least  pretend  to  be,  persuaded 
of  their  truth  ?  The  great  bulk  of 
mankind  seldom  think  of  them ;  never, 
when  hurried  along  by  passion,  preju- 
dice, or  example.  If  they  produce  any 
effect,  it  is  only  upon  those  to  whom 
they  are  unnecessary  in  urging  to  do 
good,  and  restraining  from  evil.  They 
fill  the  hearts  of  good  men  with  ter- 
rour,  but  have  not  the  smallest  influ- 
ence over  the  wicked. 

Bad  men  may  be  found  among  infi- 
dels, but  infidelity  by  no  means  implies 
wickedness.  On  the  contrary,  the  man 
who  thinks  and  meditates,  better  knows 
motives  for  being  good,  than  he  who 
permits  himself  to  be  blindly  conducted 
by  the  motives  of  others.  The  man 
who  does  not  expect  another  state  of 
existence,  is  the  more  interested  in 
prolonging  his  life,  and  rendering  him- 
self dear  to  his  fellow-men,  in  the  only 
state  of  existence  with  which  he  is  ac- 
quainted. The  dogma  of  a  future  state 
destroys  our  happiness  in  this  life  ;  we 
sink  under  calamity,  and  remain  in 
errour,  in  expectation  of  being  happy 
hereafter. 

The  present  state  has  served  as  the 
model  of  the  future.  We  feel  pleasure 
and  pain — hence  a  heaven  and  a  hell. 
A  body  is  necessary  for  enjoying  hea- 
venly pleasures — hence  the  dogma  of 
a  resurrection. 

But  whence  has  the  idea  of  hell 
arisen?  Because,  like  a  sick  person 
who  clings  even  to  a  miserable  exist- 
ence, man  prefers  a  life  of  pain  to  an- 
nihilation, which  he  considers  as  the 
greatest  of  calamities.  That  notion 
was  besides  counterbalanced  by  the 
idea  of  divine  mercy. 


348 


APPENDIX. 


Did  not  men,  by  a  happy  inconsis- 
tency, deviate  in  their  conduct  from 
those  insolent  ideas,  the  terrours  ascrib- 
ed to  a  future  state  are  so  strong,  that 
they  would  sink  into  brutality,  and  the 
world  become  a  desert. 

Although  this  dogma  may  operate 
upon  the  passions,  do  we  see  fewer 
wicked  men  among  those  who  are  the 
most  firmly  persuaded  of  its  truth  ? 
Men  who  think  themselves  restrained 
by  those  terrours,  impute  to  them  ef- 
fects ascribable  only  to  present  motives, 
such  as  timidity,  and  apprehension  of 
the  consequences  of  doing  a  bad  action. 
Can  the  fears  of  a  distant  futurity  re- 
strain the  man  upon  whom  those  of 
immediate  punishment  produce  no  ef- 
fect ? 

Religion  itself  destroys  the  effect  of 
those  terrours.  The  remission  of  sin 
emboldens  the  wicked  man  to  his  last 
moment.  This  dogma  is  consequently 
opposed  to  the  former. 

The  inspirers  of  those  terrours  admit 
them  to  be  ineffectual ;  priests  are  con- 
tinually lamenting  that  man  is  still 
hurried  on  by  his  vicious  inclinations. 
In  fine,  for  one  timid  man  who  is  re- 
strained by  those  terrours,  there  are 
millions  whom 'they  render  ferocious, 
useless,  and  wicked,  and  turn  aside 
from  their  duties  to  society,  which  they 
are  continually  tormenting. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Of  Education — Morality  and  Laws  sufficient 
to  Restrain  Man — Desire  of  Immortality — 
Suicide. 

LET  us  not  seek  motives  to  action 
in  this  world,  in  a  distant  futurity.  It 
is  to  experience  and  truth  that  \ve  ou^ht 
to  have  recourse,  in  providing  remedies 
to  those  evils  which  are  incident  to 
our  species.  There,  too,  must  be  sought 
those  motives  which  give  the  heart  in- 
clinations useful  to  society. 

Education,  above  all,  gives  the  mind 
habits,  useful  to  the  individual  and  to 
society.  Men  have  no  need  either  of 
celestial  rewards  or  supernatural  pun- 
ishments. 

Government  stands  in  no  need  of 
fables  for  its  support.  Present  rewards 
and  punishments  are  more  efficacious 
than  those  of  futurity,  and  they  only 


ought  to  be  employed.  Man  is  every 
where  a  slave,  and  consequently  void 
of  honour ;  base,  interested,  and  dissim- 
ulating. These  are  the  vices  of  gov- 
ernments. Man  is  every  where  de- 
ceived, and  prevented  from  cultivating 
his  reason ;  he  is  consequently  stupid 
and  unreasonable:  every  where  he  sees 
vice  and  crime  honoured  ;  and  there- 
fore concludes  the  practice  of  vice  to 
lead  to  happiness,  and,  that  of  virtue, 
a  sacrifice  of  himself.  Every  where 
he  is  miserable,  and  compelled  to  wrong 
his  neighbours,  that  he  may  be  happy. 
Heaven  is  held  up  to  his  view,  but  the 
earth  arrests  his  attention.  Here  he 
will,  at  all  events,  be  happy.  Were 
mankind  happier  and  better  governed, 
there  would  be  no  need  of  resorting  to 
fraud  for  governing  them. 

Cause  man  to  view  this  state  as 
alone  capable  of  rendering  him  happy; 
bound  his  hopes  to  this  life,  instead  of 
amusing  him  with  tales  of  a  futurity  ; 
show  him  what  effect  his  actions  have 
over  his  neighbours ;  excite  his  in- 
dustry ;  reward  his  talents ;  make  him 
active,  laborious,  benevolent  and  vir- 
tuous ;  teach  him  to  value  the  affection 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  let  him  know 
the  consequences  of  their  hatred. 

However  great  the  fear  of  death  may 
be,  chagrin,  mental  affliction,  and  mis- 
fortunes, cause  us  sometimes  to  regard 
it  as  a  refuge  from  human  injustice. 

Suicide  has  been, variously  consider- 
ed. Some  have  imagined  that  man 
has  no  right  to  break  the  contract  which 
he  has  entered  into  with  society.  But 
upon  examining  the  connexions  which 
subsist  between  man  and  nature,  they 
will  be  found  neither  to  be  voluntary 
on  the  one  part,  nor  reciprocal  on  the 
other.  Man's  will  had  no  share  in 
bringing  him  into  the  world,  and  he 
goes  out  of  it  against  his  inclination. 
All  his  actions  are  compulsatory.  He 
can  only  love  existence  upon  condition 
that  it  renders  him  happy. 

By  examining  man's  contract  with 
society,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  only  con- 
<|itional  and  reciprocal,  and  supposes 
mutual  advantages  to  the  contracting 
parties.  Convenience  is  the  bond  of 
connexion.  Is  it  broken  ?  Man  from 
that  moment  becomes  free.  Would 
we  blame  the  man  who,  finding  him- 
self destitute  of  the  means  of  subsist- 
ence in  the  citv  retires  into  the  coun- 


APPENDIX. 


249 


try  ?    He  who  dies,  only  retires  into 
solitude. 

The  difference  of  opinion  upon  this, 
as  well  as  other  subjects,  is  necessary. 
The  suicide  will  tell  you,  that  in  his 
situation,  your  conduct  would  be  pre- 
cisely similar :  but  to  be  in  the  situa- 
tion of  another,  we  must  possess  his 
organization,  constitution,  and  pas- 
sions ;  be,  in  short,  himself,  placed  in 
the  same  circumstances,  and  actuated 
by  the  same  motives.  These  maxims 
may  be  thought  dangerous  :  but  max- 
ims alone  do  not  lead  men  to  the  adop- 
tion of  such  violent  resolutions.  It  is 
a  constitution  whetted  by  chagrin,  a 
vicious  organization,  a  derangement 
of  the  machine — in  a  word,  necessity. 
Death  is  a  resource  of  which  oppress- 
ed virtue  should  never  be  deprived. 


/  CHAPTER  XV. 

Of  Man's  Interest,  or  the  Ideas  he  forms  of 
Happiness — Without  Virtue  he  cannot  be 
Happy. 

INTKRKST  is  the  object  to  which 
every  man,  according  to  his  constitu- 
tion, attaches  happiness.  The  same 
happiness  does  not  suit  all  men,  as 
that  of  every  man  depends  upon  his 
peculiar  organization.  It  may,  there- 
fore, be  easily  conceived,  that  in  beings 
of  such  different  natures,  what  consti- 
tutes the  pleasure  of  one  man,  may  be 
indifferent,  or  even  disgusting  to  an- 
other. No  man  can  determine  what 
will  constitute  the  happiness  of  his 
neighbour. 

Compelled,  however,  to  judge  of 
actions  from  their  effects  upon  our- 
selves, we  approve  of  the  interest 
which  animates  them,  according  to 
the  advantage  which  they  produce  to 
the  human  species.  Thus,  we  admire 
valour,  generosity,  talents,  and  virtue. 

It  is  the  nature  of  man  to  love  him- 
self, to  preserve  his  existence,  and  to 
render  it  happy.  Experience  and  rea- 
son soon  convince  him,  that  he  cannot 
alone  command  the  means  of  procu- 
ring happiness.  He  sees  other  human 
beings  engaged  in  the  same  pursuit, 
yet  capable  of  assisting  him  to  attain 
his  desired  object.  He  perceive's,  that 
they  will  favour  his  views  in  so  far 
only  as  they  coincide  with  their  own 


interest.  He  will  then  conclude,  that 
to  secure  his  own  happiness,  he  must 
conciliate  their  attachment,  approba- 
tion, and  assistance  ;  and  that  it  is  ne- 
cessary to  make  them  find  advantage3 
in  promoting  his  views.  The  procu- 
ring of  those  advantages  to  mankind 
constitutes  virtue.  The  wise  man  finds 
it  his  interest  to  be  virtuous.  Virtue 
is  nothing  more  than  the  art  of  render- 
ing a  man  happv,  by  contributing  to 
the  happiness  of  others.  Merit  and 
virtue  are  founded  upon  the  nature  and 
wants  of  man. 

The  virtuous  man  is  always  happy. 
In  every  face  he  reads  the  right  which 
he  has  acquired  over  the  heart.  Vice 
is  compelled  to  yield  to  virtue,  whose 
superiority  she  blushingly  acknow- 
ledges. Should  the  man  of  virtue 
sometimes  languish  in  contempt  or  ob- 
scurity, the  justice  of  his  cause  forms 
his  consolation  for  the  injustice  of 
mankind.  This  consolation  is  denied 
to  the  wicked,  whose  hearts  are  the 
abode  of  anxiety,  shame,  and  remorse. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

The  Erroneous  Opinions  entertained  by  Man 
of  Happiness  are  the  True  Causes  of  hit 
Misery. 

NOTHING  can  be  more  frivolous  than 
the  declamations  of  a  gloomy  philoso- 
pher against  the  love  of  power,  gran- 
deur, riches,  or  pleasure.  Every  thing 
which  promises  advantages  is  a  natural 
object  of  desire. 

Paternal  authority,  those  of  rank, 
riches,  genius,  and  talents  are  founded 
upon  those  advantages.  It  is  only  on 
account  of  the  advantages  they  pro- 
duce, that  the  sciences  are  estimable. 
Kings,  rich  and  great  men,  may  im- 
pose upon  us  by  show  and  splendour, 
but  it  is  from  their  benefits  alone  that 
they  have  legitimate  power  over  us. 

Experience  teaches  us,  that  the  ca- 
lamities_of  mankind  have  sprung  from 
religious  opinions.  The  ignorance  of 
natural  causes  created  Gods,  and  im- 
posture made  them  terrible.  Man  lived 
unhappy,  because  he  was  told  that  God 
had  condemned  him  to  misery.  He 
never  entertained  a  wish  of  breaking 
his  chains,  as  he  was  taught,  that  stu- 
pidity, the  renouncing  of  reason,  mental 


APPENDIX. 


debility,  and  spiritual  debasement,  were 
the  means  of  obtaining  eternal  felicity. 
Kings,  transformed  by  men  into  Gods, 
seemed  to  inherit  the  right  of  govern- 
ment :  and  politics  became  the  fatal 
art  of  sacrificing  the  happiness  of  all 
to  the  caprice  of  an  individual. 

The  same  blindness  pervaded  the 
science  of  morality.  Instead  of  found- 
ing it  upon  the  nature  of  man,  and  the 
relations  which  subsist  between  him 
and  his  fellows,  or  upon  the  duties  re- 
sulting from  those  relations,  religion 
established  an  imaginary  connexion 
between  man  and  invisible  beings. 
The  Gods,  always  painted  as  tyrants, 
became  the  model  of  human  conduct. 
When  man  injured  his  neighbour,  he 
thought  he  had  offended  God,  and  be- 
lieved that  he  could  pacify  him  by 
presents  and  humility.  Religion  cor- 
rupted morality,  and  the  expiations  of 
piety  completed  its  destruction.  Re- 
ligious remedies  were  disgusting  to 
human  passions,  because  unsuited  to 
the  nature  of  man  :  and  they  were 
called  divine.  Virtue  appeared  hate- 
ful to  man,  because  it  was  represented 
to  him  as  inimical  to  pleasure.  In  the 
observance  of  his  duties,  he  saw  no- 
thing but  a  sacrifice  of  every  thing 
dear ;  and  real  motives  to  induce  such 
a  sacrifice  were  never  shown  him. 
The  present  prevailed  over  the  future, 
the  visible  over  the  invisible.  Man 
became  wicked,  as  every  thing  told 
him,  that  to  enjoy  happiness  it  was 
necessary  to  be  so. 

Melancholy  devotees,  finding  the 
objects  of  human  desire  incapable  of 
satisfying  the  heart,  decried  them  as 
pernicious  and  abominable.  Blind 
physicians  !  who  take  the  natural  state 
of  man  for  that  of  disease !  Forbid 
man  to  love  and  to  desire,  and  you 
wrest  from  him  his  being  !  Bid  him 
hate  and  despise  himself,  and  you  take 
away  his  strongest  motives  to  virtue. 

In  spite  of  our  complaints  against 
fortune,  there  are  many  happy  men  in 
this  world.  There  are  also  to  be  found 
sovereigns,  ambitious  of  making  na- 
tions happy  ;  elevated  souls  who  en- 
courage genius,  succour  indigence,  and 
possess  the  desire  of  engaging  admi- 
ration. 

Poverty  itself  is  not  excluded  from 
happiness.  The  poor  man,  habituated 
to  labour,  knows  the  sweets  of  repose. 


With  limited  knowledge,  and  few  ideas, 
he  has  still  fewer  desires. 

The  sum  total  of  good  exceeds  that 
of  evil.  There  is  no  happiness  in  the 
gross,  though  much  of  it  in  the  detail. 
In  the  whole  course  of  a  man's  life 
few  days  are  altogether  unhappy. — 
Habit  lightens  our  sorrows,  and  sus- 
pended grief  is  enjoyment.  Every 
want,  at  the  moment  of  its  gratification, 
becomes  a  pleasure.  Absence  of  pain 
and  of  sickness  is  a  happy  state,  which 
we  enjoy  without  being  sensible  of  it. 
Hope  assists  us  to  support  calamity. 
In  short,  the  man  who  thinks  himself 
the  most  unhappy,  sees  not  the  ap- 
proach of  death  without  terrour,  unless 
despair  has,  to  his  eyes,  disfigured  the 
whole  of  nature.  When  nature  denies 
us  any  pleasure,  she  leaves  open  a  door 
for  our  departure  ;  and  should  we  not 
make  use  of  it,  it  is  because  we  still 
find  a  pleasure  in  existence. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Origin  of  our  Ideas  concerning  tlie  Dirinity. 

EVIL  is  necessary  to  man,  since  with- 
out it  he  would  be  ignorant  of  what  is 
good.  Without  evil,  he  could  neither 
have  choice,  will,  passions,  nor  incli- 
nations ;  he  could  neither  have  motives 
for  loving  nor  hating.  He  would  then 
be  an  automaton,  and  no  longer  man. 

The  evil  which  he  saw  in  the  uni- 
verse, suggested  to  man  the  idea  of  a 
Divinity.  A  crowd  of  evils,  such  as 
plagues,  famines,  earthquakes,  inunda- 
tions, and  conflagrations,  terrified  him. 
But  what  ideas  did  he  form  of  the 
cause  which  produced  such  effects  ? 
Man  never  imagined  nature  the  cause 
of  the  calamities  which  afflicted  her- 
self. Finding  no  agent  on  earth,  capa- 
ble of  producing  such  effects,  he  di- 
rected his  attention  to  heaven,  the 
imagined  residence  of  beings,  whose 
enmity  destroyed  his  felicity  in  this 
world. 

Terrour  was  always  associated  with 
the  idea  of  those  powerful  beings. 

From  known  objects,  men  judge  of 
unknown.  Man  gave,  from  himself, 
a  will,  intelligence,  and  passions  simi- 
lar to.his  own,  to  every  unknown  cause 
which  acted  upon  him.  Influenced 
himself  by  submission  and  presents, 


APPENDIX. 


351 


he  employed  these  to  gain  the  favour 
of  the  Divinity. 

The  business  relative  to  those  offer- 
ings was  confided  to  old  men,  and 
much  ceremony  was  used  in  making 
them.  The  ceremonies  were  contin- 
ued, and  became  custom.  Thus  re- 
ligion and  priestcraft  were  introduced 
into  the  world. 

The  mind  of  man  (whose  essence  it 
is  to  labour  incessantly  upon  unknown 
objects,  to  which  it  originally  attached 
consequence,  and  dares  not  afterwards 
coolly  examine)  soon  modified  those 
systems. 

By  a  necessary  consequence  of  those 
opinions,  nature  was  soon  stripped  of 
all  power.  Man  could  not  conceive 
the  possibility  of  nature's  permitting 
him  to  suffer,  were  she  not  herself  sub- 
ject to  a  power,  inimical  to  his  happi- 
ness, and  having  an  interest  in  punish- 
ing and  afflicting  him. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Of  Mythology  and  Theology. 

MAN  originally  worshipped  nature. 
All  things  were  spoken  of  allegorically, 
and  every  part  of  nature  was  personi- 
fied. Hence  a  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Apollo, 
&c.  The  vulgar  did  not  perceive  that 
it  was  nature  and  her  parts  which 
were  thus  allegorized.  The  source 
from  which  Gods  were  taken  was  soon 
forgotten.  An  incomprehensible  being 
was  formed  from  the  power  of  nature, 
and  called  its  mover.  Thus  nature 
was  separated  from  herself,  and  be- 
came considered  as  an  inanimate  mass 
incapable  of  action. 

It  became  necessary  to  ascribe  quali- 
ties to  this  moving  power.  This  being, 
or,  latterly,  spirit,  intelligence,  incor- 
poreal being ;  that  is  to  say,  a  sub- 
stance different  from  any  that  we  know, 
was  seen  by  nobody.  Men  could  only 
ascribe  it  to  qualities  from  themselves. 
What  they  called  human  perfection 
was  the  model  in  miniature  of  the 
perfection  of  the  Divinity. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  viewing 
the  calamities  and  disorders  to  which 
the  world  was  so  subject,  why  not  at- 
tribute to  him  malice,  imprudence,  and 
caprice  ?  This  difficulty  was  thought 
removed  in  creating  enemies  to  him. 


This  is  the  origin  of  the  rebellious 
angels.  Notwithstanding  his  power, 
he  could  not  subdue  them.  He  is  un- 
derstood to  be  in  the  same  situation 
with  regard  to  those  men  who  offend 
him. 

Having  thus,  in  their  own  opinion, 
satisfactorily  accounted  for  human  mis- 
ery, another  difficulty  occurred.  It 
could  not  be  denied,  that  just  men 
were  sometimes  included  in  the  pun- 
ishments of  God. 

It  was  then  said,  that  because  man 
had  sinned,  God  might  avenge  him- 
self upon  the  innocent  —  like  those 
wicked  princes,  who  proportion  pun- 
ishment more  to  the  grandeur  and 
power  of  the  party  offended,  than  to 
the  magnitude  and  reality  of  the  of- 
feijce.  The  most  wicked  .men,  and 
the  most  tyrannical  governments,  have 
been  the  models  of  a  Divinity,  and  his 
divine  administration. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Absurd  and  Extraordinary   Theological 
Opinions. 

GOD,  we  are  told,  is  good, — but  God 
is  the  author  of  all  things.  All  the 
calamities  which  afflict  mankind,  must, 
of  course,  be  imputed  to  him.  Good 
and  evil  suppose  two  principles  :  if 
there  be  only  one,  he  must  alternately 
be  good  and  wicked. 

God,  say  theologians,  is  just,  and 
evil  is  a  chastisement  for  the  injuries 
which  men  have  done  him.  To  offend 
any  one,  supposes  the  existence  of 
connexions  between  the  offending  and 
offended  parties.  To  offend  is  to  cause 
pain;  but  how  can  a  feeble  creature 
like  man,  who  has  received  his  very 
existence  from  God,  act  against  an  in- 
finite power,  which  never  consents  to 
sin  or  disorder  1 

Justice  supposes  the  disposition  of 
rendering  to  every  one  his  due  ;  and 
we  are  told,  that  God  owes  us  nothing : 
that,  without  prejudice  to  his  equity, 
he  may  plunge  the  work  of  his  hand 
into  an  abyss  of  misery.  Evils  are 
said  only  to  be  temporary — surely,  then, 
they  are  unjust,  during  a  certain  period. 
God  chastises  his  friends  for  their 
good  :  but  if  God  be  good,  can  he  per- 
mit them  to  suffer,  even  for  a  moment? 


352 


APPENDIX. 


If  God  be  omniscient,  why  try  his 
friends,  from  whom  he  knows  he  has 
nothing  to  fear  ?  If  omnipotent,  why 
be  disturbed  by  the  petty  plots  raised 
against  him  ? 

What  good  man  does  not  wish  to 
render  his  fellow-creatures  happy  ? 
Why  does  not  God  make  man  happy? 
No  man  has  reason  to  be  contented 
with  his  lot.  What  can  be  said  to  all 
this  ?  God's  judgments  are  impene- 
trable. In  this  case,  how  can  men 
pretend  to  reason  about  him  ?  Since 
unsearchable,  upon  what  foundation 
can  a  single  virtue  be  attributed  to 
him?  What  idea  can  we  form  of  a 
justice  which  bears  no  resemblance  to 
that  of  man  ? 

His  justice  is  said  to  be  balanced  by 
his  mercy,  but  his  mercy  derogates 
from  his  justice.  If  unchangeable,  can 
he  for  a  moment  alter  his  designs  ? 

God,  say  the  priests,  created  the  world 
for  his  own  glory.  But  already  su- 
perior to  every  thing,  was  any  addition 
wanting  to  his  glory  ?  The  love  of 
glory  is  the  desire  of  being  distinguish- 
ed among  our  equals.  If  God  be  sus- 
ceptible of  it,  why  does  he  permit  any 
one  to  abuse  his  favours  ?  or  why  are 
they  insufficient  to  make  us  act  accord- 
ing to  his  wishes  ?  Because  he  has 
made  me  a  free  agent.  But  why  grant 
me  a  liberty  which  he  knows  I  will 
abuse  1 

In  consequence  of  this  freedom,  men 
will  be  eternally  punished  in  the  other 
world,  for  the  faults  they  have  com- 
mitted in  this  life.  But  why  punish 
eternally  the  faults  of  a  moment?  what 
would  we  think  of  the  king,  that  eter- 
nally punished  one  of  his  subjects, 
who,  in  the  moment  of  intoxication. 
had  offended  his  pride,  without  how- 
ever doing  him  any  real  injury,  espe- 
cially had  he  himself  previously  in- 
toxicated him  ?  Would  we  consider 
the  monarch  as  all-powerful,  who  is 
forced  to  permit  all  his  subjects,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  faithful  friends,  to 
insult  his  laws,  and  even  his  own  person, 
and  thwart  him  in  every  measure  ? 

It  is  said,  that  the  qualities  of  God 
are  so  unlike  to  those  of  man,  and  so 
eminent,  that  no  resemblance  what- 
ever subsists  between  them.  But  in 
this  case,  how  can  we  form  an  idea  of 
them  ?  Why  does  theology  presume 
to  announce  them  ? 


But  God  has  spoken,  and  made  him- 
self known  to  man.  When  and  to 
whom  ?  where  are  those  divine  oracles  1 
in  absurd  and  contradictory  collections, 
where  the  God  of  wisdom  speaks  an 
obscure,  insidious,  and  foolish  lan- 
guage 5  where  the  God  of  benevolence 
is  cruel  and  sanguinary  ;  where  the 
God  of  justice  is  unjust,  partial,  and 
ordains  iniquity ;  where  the  God  of 
mercy  decrees  the  most  horrid  punish- 
ment to  the  victims  of  his  wrath. 

The  relations  subsisting  between 
God  and  man,  can  be  only  founded 
upon  moral  qualities.  But  if  man  be 
ignorant  of  these,  how  can  they  serve 
as  the  model  for  his  conduct?  how  can 
he  possibly  imitate  them? 

There  is  no  proportion  between  God 
and  man ;  and  where  that  is  wanting, 
there  can  be  no  relations.  If  God  be  in- 
corporeal, how  can  he  act  upon  bodies? 
how  can  they  act  upon  him,  so  as  to 
give  him  offence,  disturb  his  repose, 
and  excite  his  anger  ?  If  the  potter  be 
displeased  with  the  bad  shape  of  the 
vessel  he  has  made,  whom  has  he  but 
himself  to  blame  for  it  ? 

If  God  owes  man  nothing,  man  owes 
him  as  little.  Relations  must  be  re- 
ciprocal, and  duties  are  founded  upon 
mutual  wants.  If  these  are  useless  to 
God,  he  cannot  owe  any  thing  for 
them,  and  man  cannot  him.  God's 
authority  can  only  be  founded  upon 
the  good  which  he  bestows  upon  men  ; 
and  their  duties  must  solely  rest  upon 
the  favours  which  they  expect  from 
him.  If  God  do  not  owe  man  happi- 
ness, every  relation  between  them  is 
annihilated. 

How  can  we  reconcile  the  qualities 
ascribed  to  God  with  his  metaphysical 
attributes  ?  How  can  a  pure  spirit  act 
like  man,  a  corporeal  being  ?  A  pure 
spirit  can  neither  hear  our  prayers,  nor 
be  softened  by  our  miseries.  If  im- 
mutable, he  cannot  change.  If  all  na- 
ture, without  being  God,  can  exist  in 
conjunction  with  him,  he  cannot  be 
infinite.  If  he  either  suffers,  or  can- 
not prevent,  the  evils  and  disorders  of 
the  world,  he  cannot  be  omnipotent. 
He  cannot  be  every  where,  if  he  is  not 
in  man  while  he  commits  sin,  or  goes 
out  of  him  at  the  moment  of  its  com- 
mission. 

A  revelation  would  prove  malice  in 
the  Deity.  It  supposes,  that  he  has 


APPENDIX. 


for  a  long  time  denied  man  a  know- 
ledge necessary  to  his  happiness.  If 
it  be  made  to  a  small  number  only,  it 
is  a  partiality  inconsistent  with  his 
justice.  Revelation  would  destroy 
God's  immutability,  as  it  supposes  him 
to  have  done  at  one  period  what  he 
wished  not  to  do  at  another.  What 
kind  of  revelation  is  it,  which  cannot 
be  understood  1  If  one  man  only  were 
incapable  of  understanding  it,  that  cir- 
cumstance would  be  alone  sufficient  to 
convict  God  of  injustice. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Examination  of  Dr.  Clarke's  Proofs  of  the 
Existence  of  a  Deity. 

ALL  men,  it  is  said,  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  deity,  and  the  voice  of 
nature  is  alone  sufficient  to  establish  it. 
It  is  an  innate  idea. 

But  what  proves  that  idea  to  be  ac- 
quired is,  the  nature  of  the  opinion, 
which  varies  from  age  to  age,  and  from 
nation  to  nation.  That  it  is  unfounded, 
is  evident  from  this,  that  men  have  per- 
fected every  science,  which  has  a  real 
object,  while  that  of  God  has  been  al- 
ways in  nearly  the  same  state.  There 
is  no  subject  upon  which  men  have  en- 
tertained such  a  variety  of  opinions. 

Admitting  every  nation  to  have  a 
form  of  worship,  that  circumstance  by 
no  means  proves  the  existence  of  a 
God.  The  universality  of  an  opinion 
does  not  prove  its  truth.  Have  not  all 
nations  believed  in  the  existence  of 
witchcraft  and  of  apparitions?  Pre- 
vious to  Copernicus,  did  not  all  men 
believe  that  the  earth  was  immoveable, 
and  that  the  sun  turned  round  it? 

The  ideas  of  God  and  his  qualities 
are  only  founded  upon  the  opinions  of 
our  fathers,  infused  into  us  by  educa- 
tion; by  habits  contracted  in  infancy, 
and  strengthened  by  example  and  au- 
thority. Hence  the  opinion,  that  all 
men  are  born  with  an  idea  of  the  Di- 
vinity. We  retain  those  ideas,  without 
ever  having  reflected  upon  them. 

Dr.  Clarke  has  adduced  the  strongest 
arguments  which  have  ever  yet  been 
advanced  in  support  of  the  existence  of 
a  Deity.  His  propositions  may  be  re- 
duced into  the  following : — 

1.  "  Something  has  existed  from  all 

No.  XII.— 45 


eternity."  Yes;  but  what  is  it?  Why 
not  matter,  rather  than  spirit  ?  When 
a  thing  exists,  existence  must  be  essen- 
tial to  it.  That  which  cannot  be  an- 
nihilated, necessarily  exists:  such  is 
matter.  Matter,  therefore,  has  always 
existed. 

2.  "An  independent  and  unchange- 
able being  has  existed  from  all  eter- 
nity." 

First  of  all,  what  is  this  being  ?  Is  it 
independent  of  its  own  essence  ?  No ; 
for  it  cannot  make  the  beings  whom  it 
produces  act  otherwise  than  according 
to  their  given  properties.  One  body 
only  depends  upon  another,  in  so  far  as 
it  owes  existence  and  form  of  action  to 
it.  By  this  trifle  alone  can  matter  be 
dependent.  But  if  matter  be  eternal,  it 
cannot  be  indebted  for  its  existence  to 
another  being ;  and  if  eternal  and  self- 
existing,  it  is  evident  that,  in  virtue  of 
those  qualities,  it  contains  within  itself 
every  thing  requisite  for  action.  Matter 
being  eternal,  has  no  need  of  a  maker. 

Is  this  being  unchangeable  ?  No ;  as 
such  a  being  could  neither  will  nor  pro- 
duce successive  actions.  If  this  being 
created  matter,  there  was  a  time  in 
which  it  had  resolved  that  matter  should 
not  exist,  and  another  that  it  should. 
This  being,  therefore,  cannot  be  un- 
changeable. 

3.  "  This   eternal,   immutable,  and 
independent  being  is  self-existence." 
But  since  matter  is  eternal,  why  should 
it  not  be  self-existent? 

4.  "  The  essence  of  a  self-existent 
being  is  incomprehensible."  True,  and 
such  is  the  essence  of  matter. 

5.  "  A  necessarily  self-existing  being 
is  necessarily  eternal."     But  it  would 
have  that  property  in  common  with 
matter?  Why,  then,  separate  this  being 
from  the  universe? 

6.  "  The  self-existing  being  must  be 
infinite,  and  every  where  present."    In- 
finite !  be  it  so ;  but  we  have  no  reason 
to  think  that  matter  is  finite.     Every 
where  present !     No ;  matter  certainly 
occupies  a  part  of  space,  and  from  that 
part,  at  least,  the  Divinity  must  be  ex- 
cluded. 

7.  "  The  necessarily  self-existent  be- 
ing must  be  one."    Yes,  if  nothing  can 
exist  out  of  it.     But  can  any  one  deny 
the  existence  of  the  universe? 

8.  "  The  self-existent.being  is  neces- 
sarily intelligent."    But  intelligence  is 


APPENDIX. 


a  human  quality.  To  have  intelligence, 
thoughts  and  senses  are  necessary.  A 
being  that  has  senses  is  material,  and 
cannot  be  a  pure  spirit.  But  does  this 
being,  this  great  whole,  possess  a  par- 
ticular intelligence  which  puts  it  in 
motion ;  Since  nature  contains  intelli- 
gent beings,  why  strip  her  pf  intelli- 
gence ? 

9.  "  The  self-existent  being  is  a  free 
agent.1'    But  does  (rod  find  no  difficulty 
in  executing  his  plans  ?    Does  he  wish 
the  continuance  of  evil,  or  can  he  not 
prevent  it  ?     In  that  case,  he  either  per- 
mits sin  or  is  not  free.     He  can  only 
act  according  to  the  laws  of  his  es- 
sence.   His  will  is  determined  by  the 
wisdom  and  qualities  which  are  attrib- 
uted to  him:  He  is  not  free. 

10.  "  The  supreme  cause  of  all  things 
possesses  infinite  power."     But  if  man 
be  free  to  commit  sin,  what  becomes 
of  God's  infinite  power? 

11.  "  The  author  of  all  things  is  ne- 
cessarily wise."     If  he  be  the  author 
of  all  things,  he  is  author  of  many 
things  which  we  think  very  foolish. 

12.  "  The  supreme  cause  necessarily 
possesses  every  moral  perfection."  The 
idea  of  perfection  is  abstract.    It  is  rela- 
tive to  our  mode  of  perception  that  a 
thing  appears   perfect  to  us.     When 
injured  by  his  works,  and  forced  to  la- 
ment the  evils  we  suffer,  do  we  think 
God  perfect  ?    Is  he  so  in  respect  to  his 
works,  where  we  universally  see  con- 
fusion blended  with  order  ? 

If  it  be  pretended  that  we  cannot 
know  God,  and  that  nothing  positive 
can  be  said  about  him,  we  may  well  be 
allowed  to  doubt  of  his  existence.  If 
incomprehensible,  can  we  be  blamed 
for  not  understanding  him  ? 

We  are  told  that  common  sense  and 
reason  are  sufficient  to  demonstrate  his 
his  existence ;  but  we  are  also  told  that, 
in  these  matters,  reason  is  an  unfaithful 
guide.  Conviction,  besides,  is  always 
the  effect  of  evidence  and  demonstra- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

Examinations  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence 
of  a  Divinity. 

No  variety,  it  is  said,  can  arise  from 
a  blind  physical  necessity,  which  must 
always  be  uniform ;  that  the  variety  we 


see  around  us  can  only  proceed  from 
the  will  and  ideas  of  a  necessarily  ex- 
isting being. 

Why  should  not  this  variety  arise 
from  natural  causes — from  a  self-acting 
matter,  whose  motion  joins  and  com- 
bines various  and  analogous  elements  ? 
Is  not  a  loaf  of  bread  produced  from 
the  combination  of  meal,  yeast,  and 
water?  Blind  necessity  is  a  name 
which  we  give  to  a  power  with  whose 
energy  we  are  unacquainted. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  regular  move- 
ments and  admirable  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  the  benefits  daily  bestowed 
upon  man,  announce  wisdom  and  intel- 
ligence. Those  movements  are  the 
necessary  effects  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
which  we  call  either  good  or  bad,  as 
they  effect  ourselves. 

Animals,  it  is  asserted,  are  a  proof 
of  the  powerful  cause  which  created 
them.  The  power  of  nature  cannot  he 
doubted.  Are  animals,  on  account  of 
the  harmony  of  their  parts,  the  work 
of  an  invisible  being?  They  are  con- 
tinually changing,  and  finally  perish. 
If  God  cannot  form  them  otherwise,  he 
is  neither  free  nor  powerful;  if  he 
change  his  mind,  he  is  not  immutable ; 
if  he  allow  machines,  whom  he  has 
created  sensible,  to  experience  sorrow, 
he  is  destitute  of  bounty ;  if  he  cannot 
make  his  works  more  durable,  he  is 
deficient  in  skill. 

Man,  who  thinks  himself  the  chief 
work  in  nature,  proves  either  the  malice 
or  incapacity  of  his  pretended  author. 
His  machine  is  more  subject  to  de- 
rangement than  that  of  other  beings. 
Who,  upon  the  loss  of  a  loved  object, 
would  not  rather  be  a  beast  or  a  stone 
than  a  human  being?  Better  be  an 
inanimated  rock  than  a  devotee,  trem- 
bling under  the  yoke  of  his  God,  and 
foreseeing  still  greater  torments  in  a 
future  state  of  existence ! 

Is  it  possible,  say  theologians,  to 
conceive  the  universe  to  be  without  a 
maker,  who  watches  over  his  work- 
manship? Show  a  statue  or  a  watch 
to  a  savage,  which  he  has  not  before 
seen,  and  he  will  at  once  conclude  it 
to  be  the  work  of  a  skilful  artist. 

1.  Nature  is  very  powerful  and  in- 
dustrious ;  but  we  are  as  little  acquaint- 
ed with  the  manner  in  which  she  forms 
a  stone  or  a  mineral  as  a.  brain  organ- 
ized like  that  of  Newton.  Nature  caa 


APPENDIX. 


355 


do  all  things,  and  the  existence  of  any 
thing  proves  itself  to  be  one  of  her  pro- 
ductions. Let  us  not  conclude  that  the 
works  which  most  astonish  us  are  not 
of  her  production. 

2.  The  savage  to  whom  a  watch  is 
shown  will  either  have  ideas  of  human 
industry  or  hefcwill  not.     If  he  has.  he 
will  at  once  consider  it  to  be  the  pro- 
duction of  a  being  of  his  own  species ; 
if  not,  he  will  never  think  it  the  work 
of  a  being  like  himself.     He  will  con- 
sequently attribute  it  to  a  genius  or 
spirit,  i.  e.  loan  unknown  power,  whom 
he  will  suppose  capable  of  producing 
effects  beyond  those  of  human  beings. 
By  this,  the  savage  will  only  prove  his 
ignorance  of  what  man  is  capable  of 
performing. 

3.  Upon  opening  and  examining  the 
watch,  the  savage  will  perceive  that  it 
must  be  a  work  of  man.     He  will  at 
once  perceive  its  difference  from  the 
immediate  works  of  nature,  whom  he 
never  saw  produce  wheels  of  polished 
metal.     But  he  will  never  suppose  a 
material  work  the  production  of  an  im- 
material being.     In  viewing  the  world, 
we  see  a  material  cause  of  its  phe- 
nomena,  and    this    cause    is    nature, 
whose  energy  is  known  to  those  who 
study  her. 

Let  us  not  be  told,  that  we  thus  at- 
tribute every  thing  to  blind  causes,  and 
to  a  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms :  we 
call  those  causes  blind  of  which  we  are 
ignorant:  we  attribute  effects  to  chance, 
when  we  do  not  perceive  the  tie  which 
connects  them  with  their  causes.  Na- 
ture is  neither  a  blind  cause,  nor  does 
she  act  by  chance:  all  her  productions 
are  necessary,  and  always  the  effect  of 
fixed  laws.  There  may  be  ignorance 
on  our  part,  but  the  words  Spirit,  God, 
arid  Intelligence,  will  not  remedy,  but 
only  increase  that  ignorance. 

This  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  the 
eternal  objection  made  to  the  partisans 
of  nature,  of  attributing  every  thing  to 
chance.  Chance  is  a  word  void  of 
meaning,  and  only  exposes  the  igno- 
rance of  those  who  use  it.  We  are  told 
that  a  regular  work  cannot  be  formed 
by  the  combinations  of  chance ;  that  an 
epic  poem,  like  the  Iliad,  can  never  be 
'produced  by  letters  thrown  together  at 
random.  Certainly  not.  It  is  nature 
that  combines,  according  to  fixed  laws, 
an  organized  head  capable  of  producing 


such  a  work.  Nature  bestows  such  a 
temperament  and  organization  upon  a 
brain,  that  a  head,  constituted  like  that 
of  Homer,  placed  in  the  same  circum- 
stances, must  necessarily  produce  a 
poem  like  the  Iliad,  unless  it  be  denied 
that  the  same  causes  produce  the  same 
effects. 

Every  thing  is  the  effect  of  the  com- 
binations of  matter.  The  most  admi- 
rable of  her  productions  which  we  be- 
hold, are  only  the  natural  effects  of  her 
parts,  differently  arranged.* 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Of  Deism,   Optimism,  and  Final  Causes, 

ADMITTING  the  existence  of  a  God, 
and  even  supposing  him  possessed  of 
views  and  of  intelligence,  what  is  the 
result  to  mankind  1  What  connexion 
can  subsist  between  us  and  such  a 
being?  Will  the  good  or  bad  effects 
proceeding  from  his  omnipotence  and 

*  Whatever  may  be  their  pretensions,  the 
partisans  of  religioncan  only  prove,  that  every 
thing  is  the  effect  of  a  cause ;  that  we  are  often 
ignorant  of  the  immediate  causes  of  the  effects 
we  see ;  that  even  when  we  discover  them,  we 
find  that  they  are  the  effects  of  other  causes, 
and  so  on,  ad  inftnitum.  But  they  neither 
have  proved,  nor  can  they  prove,  the  necessity 
of  ascending  to  a  first  eternal  cause,  the  uni- 
versal cause  of  all  particular  ones,  producing 
not  only  the  properties,  but  even  the  existence 
of  things,  and  which  is  independent  of  every 
other  cause.  It  is  true,  we  do  not  always 
know  the  tie,  chain,  and  progress  of  every 
cause;  but  what  can  be  inferred  from  that? 
Ignorance  can  never  be  a  reasonable  motive 
either  of  belief  or  of  determination. 

I  am  ignorant  of  the  cause  that  produces  a 
certain  effect,  and  cannot  assign  one  to  my 
own  satisfaction.  But  must  I  be  contented 
with  that  assigned  by  another  more  presump- 
tuous, though  no  better  informed  than  I,  who 
says  he  is  convinced ;  especially  when  I  know 
the  existence  of  such  a  cause  to  be  impossible'? 
The  watch  of  a  shipwrecked  European  having 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  an  Indian  tribe,  they 
held  a  consultation  to  discover  the  cause  of 
its  extraordinary  movements.  For  a  long 
time,  they  could  resolve  upon  nothing.  At 
length,  one  of  the  group,  bolder  than  the  rest, 
declared  it  to  be  an  animal  of  a  species  differ- 
ent from  any  with  which  they  were  acquaint- 
ed ;  and  as  none  of  them  could  convince  him 
that  those  movements  of  the  watch  could 
proceed  from  any  other  principle  than  that 
which  produces  animal  life  and  action,  he 
thought  himself  entitled  to  oblige  the  assem- 
bly to  accept  of  his  explication. 


356 


APPENDIX. 


providence  be  other  than  those  of  his 
wisdom,  justice,  and  eternal  decrees? 
Can  we  suppose  that  he  will  change 
his  plans  on  our  account  1  Overcome 
by  our  prayers,  will  he  cause  the  fire  to 
cease  from  burning,  or  prevent  a  falling 
building  from  crushing  those  who  are 
passing  beneath  it?  What  can  we  ask 
of  him,  if  he  be  compelled  to  give  a 
free  course  to  the  events  which  he  has 
ordained?  Opposition,  on  our  part, 
would  be  phrensy. 

Why  deprive  me  of  my  God,  says 
the  happy  enthusiast,  who  favours  me, 
whom  J  view  as  a  benevolent  sove- 
reign continually  watching  over  me  ? 
Why,  says  the  unfortunate  man,  de- 
prive me  of  my  God,  whose  consoling 
idea  dries  up  my  tears? 

I  answer  by  asking  them,  on  what  do 
they  found  the  goodness  which  they 
attribute  to  God?  For  one  happy  hu- 
man being,  bow  many  do  we  not  see 
miserable!  Is  he  good  to  all  men? 
How  many  calamities  do  we  not  daily 
see,  while  he  is  deaf  to  our  prayers  ? 
Every  man,  therefore,  must  judge  of 
the  Divinity  according  as  he  is  affected 
by  circumstances. 

In  finding  every  thing  good  in  the 
world,  where  good  is  necessarily  at- 
tended with  evil,  the  optimists  Seem  to 
have  renounced  the  evidence  of  their 
senses.  Good  is,  according  to  them, 
the  end  of  the  whole.  But  the  whole 
can  have  no  end :  if  it  had,  it  would 
cease  being  the  whole. 

God,  say  some  men,  knows  how  to 
benefit  us  by  the  evils  which  he  permits 
us  to  suffer  in  this  life.  But  how  do 
they  know  this  ?  Since  he  has  treated 
us  ill  in  this  life,  what  assurance  have 
we  of  a  better  treatment  in  a  future 
state  ?  What  good  can  possibly  result 
from  the  plagues  and  famines  which 
desolate  the  earth  ?  It  is  necessary  to 
create  another  world  to  exculpate  the 
Divinity  from  blame  for  the  calamities 
he  makes  us  suffer  in  the  present. 

Some  men  suppose  that  God,  after 
creating  matter  out  of  nothing,  aban- 
doned it  for  ever  to  its  primary  impulse. 
These  men  only  want  a  God  to  produce 
matter,  and  suppose  him  to  live  in  com- 
plete indifference  as  to  the  fate  of  his 
workmanship.  Such  a  God  is  a  being 
quite  useless  to  man.  -J 

Others  have  imagined  certain  duties 
to  be  due  by  man  to  his  Creator.  Oth- 


ers suppose  that,  in  consequence  of  hia 
justice,  he  will  reward  and  punish. 
They  make  a  man  of  their  God.  But 
these  attributes  contradict  each  other ; 
for,  by  supposing  him  the  author  of  all 
things,  he  must,  consequently,  be  the 
author  of  both  good  and  evil.  We 
might  as  well  believe  aK  things. 

It  is  asked  of  us,  would  you  rather 
depend  upon  blind  nature  than  on  a 
good,  wise,  and  intelligent  being? 

But,  1.  Our  interest  does  not  deter- 
mine the  reality  of  things.  2.  This  be- 
ing, so  supereminently  wise  and  good, 
is  presented  to  us  as  a  foolish  tyrant, 
and  it  would  be  better  for  man  to  de- 
pend upon  blind  nature  than  upon  such 
a  being.  3.  Nature,  when  well  studied, 
teaches  us  the  means  of  becoming  hap- 
py, so  far,  at  least,  as  our  essence  will 
permit.  She  informs  us  of  the  proper 
means  of  acquiring  happiness. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Examination  of  Hie  Supposed  Advantages 
which  result  to  Man  from  the  Notions  of  a 
Divinity,  or  their  Influence  upon  Morals, 
Politics,  Science,  the  Welfare  of  Nations, 
and  of  Individuals. 

MORALITY,  originally  having  only  for  ' 
its  object  the  self-preservation  of  man, 
and  his  Avelfare  in  society,  had  nothing 
to  do  with  religious  systems.  Man,  from 
his  own  mind,  found  motives  for  mod- 
erating his  passions  and  resisting  his 
vicious  inclinations,  and  for  rendering 
himself  useful  and  estimable  to  those 
of  whom  he  constantly  stood  in  need. 

Those  systems  which  describe  God 
as  a  tyrant  cannot  render  him  an  ob- 
ject of  imitation  to  man.  They  paint 
him  jealous,  vindictive,  and  interested. 
Thus  religion  divides  men.  They  dis- 
pute with  and  persecute  one  another, 
and  never  reproach  themselves  with 
crimes  committed  in  the  name  of  God. 

The  same  spirit  pervades  religion. 
There  we  hear  of  nothing  but  victims ; 
and  even  the  pure  Spirit  of  the  Chris- 
tians must  have  his  own  son  murdered 
to  appease  his  fury. 

Man  requires  a  morality,  founded 
upon  nature  and  experience. 

Do  we  find  real  virtue  among  priests?  ' 
Are  these  men,  so  firmly  persuaded  of 
God's  existence,  the  less  addicted  to 
debauchery  and  intemperance  ?   Upon 


APPENDIX. 


357 


seeing  their  conduct,  we  are  apt  to  think 
that  they  are  entirely  undeceived  in 
their  opinions  of  the  Divinity. 

Does  the  idea  of  a  rewarding  and 
avenging  God  impose  upon  those  prin- 
ces who  derive  their  power,  as  they 
pretend,  from  the  Divinity  himself? 
Are  those  wicked  and  remorseless  mon- 
archs  who  spread  destruction  around 
them  atheists  1  They  call  the  Divinity 
to  witness,  at  the  very  moment  when 
they  are  about  to  violate  their  oaths. 
»  Have  religious  systems  bettered  the 
morals  of  the  people?  Religion,  in 
their  opinion,  supersedes  every  thing. 
Its  ministers,  content  with  supporting 
dogmas  and  rites,  useful  to  their  own 
power,  multiply  troublesome  ceremo- 
nies, with  a  view  of  drawing  profit  by 
their  slaves  transgressing  them.  Be- 
hold the  work  of  religion  and  priestcraft 
in  a  sale  of  the  favours  of  Heaven ! 
The  unmeaning  words,  impiety,  blas- 
phemy, sacrilege,  and  heresy,  were  in- 
vented by  priests ;  and  those  pretended 
crimes  have  been  punished  with  the 
greatest  severities. 

What  must  be  the  fate  of  youth  un- 
der such  preceptors?  From  infancy 
the  human  mind  is  poisoned  with  un- 
intelligible notions  and  disturbed  by 
phantoms,  genius  is  cramped  by  a  me- 
chanical devotion,  and  man  wholly 
prejudiced  against  reason  and  truth. 

Does  religion  form  citizens,  fathers, 
or  husbands  ?  It  is  placed  above  every 
thing.  The  fanatic  is  told  that  he  must 
obey  God,  and  not  man  ;  consequently, 
when  he  thinks  himself  acting  in  the 
cause  of  Heaven,  he  will  rebel  against 
his  country,  and  abandon  his  family. 

Were  education  directed  to  useful 
objects,  incalculable  benefits  would 
arise  therefrom  to  mankind.  Notwith- 
standing their  religious  education,  how 
many  men  are  subject  to  criminal  hab- 
its. In  spite  of  a  hell,  so  horrid  even 
in  description,  what  crowds  of  aban- 
doned criminals  fill  our  cities  !  Those 
men  would  recoil  with  horrour  from 
him  who  expressed  any  doubts  of  God's 
existence.  From  the  temple,  where 
sacrifices  have  been  made,  divine  ora- 
cles uttered,  and  vice  denounced  in  the 
name  of  Heaven,  every  man  returns  to 
his  former  criminal  courses. 

Are  condemned  thieves  and  murder- 
ers either  atheists  or  unbelievers  ? — 
those  wretches  believe  in  a  God.  They 


have  continually  heard  him  spoken  of; 
neither  are  they  strangers  to  the  punish- 
ment which  he  has  destined  to  crimes. 
But  a  hidden  God  and  distant  pun- 
ishments are  ill  calculated  to  restrain 
crimes,  which  present  and  certain  chas- 
tisements do  not  always  prevent. 

The  man  who  would  tremble  at  the 
commission  of  the  smallest  crime  in 
the  face  of  the  world,  does  not  hesitate 
for  a  moment  when  he  thinks  himself 
only  seen  by  God.  So  feeble  is  the 
idea  of  divinity  when  opposed  to  human 
passions. 

Does  the  most  religious  father,  in 
advising  his  son,  speak  to  him  of  a  vin- 
dictive God  ?  His  constitution  destroy- 
ed by  debauchery,  his  fortune  ruined  by 
gaming,  the  contempt  of  society — these 
are  the  motives  he  employs. 

The  idea  of  a  God  is  both  useless 
and  contrary  to  sound  moralityx — it 
neither  procures  happiness  to  society 
nor  to  individuals.  Men  always  occu- 
pied with  phantoms,  live  in  perpetual 
terrour.  They  neglect  their  most  im- 
portant concerns,  and  pass  a  miserable 
existence  in  groans,  prayers,  and  expia- 
tions. They  imagine  that  they  appease 
God  by  subjecting  themselves  to  every 
evil.  What  fruit  does  society  derive 
from  the  lugubrious  notions  of  those 
pious  madmen  ?  They  are  either  mis- 
anthropes, useless  to  themselves  and 
to  the  world,  or  fanatics  who  disturb 
the  peace  of  nations.  If  religious  ideas 
console  a  few  timid  and  peaceable  en- 
thusiasts, they  render  miserable  during 
life  millions  of  others,  infinitely  more 
consistent  with  their  principles.  The 
man  who  can  be  tranquil  under  a  ter- 
rible God  must  be  a  being  destitute  of 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Religious  Opinions  cannot  be  the  Foundation 
of  Morality — Parallel  between  Religious 
and  Natural  Morality — Religion  impedes 
the  Progress  of  the  Mind. 

ARBITRARY  and  inconsistent  opinions, 
contradictory  notions,  abstract  and  un- 
intelligible speculations,  can  never 
serve  as  a  foundation  to  morality ; 
which  must  rest  upon  clear  and  evident 
principles,  deduced  from  the  nature  of 
man,  and  founded  upon  experience  and 
reason.  Morality  is  always  uniform, 


338 


APPENDIX. 


and  never  follows  the  imagination,  pas- 
sions, or  interests  of  man.     It  must  be 
stable  and  equal  for  all  men,  never 
varying  with  time  or  place.     Morality, 
fbeing  the  science  of  the  duties  of  man 
'  living  in  society,  must  be  founded  on 
sentiments  inherent  in  our  nature.     In 
a  word,  its  basis  must  be  necessity. 

Theology  is  wrong  in  supposing  that 
mutual  wants,  the  desire  of  happiness, 
and  the  evident  interests  of  societies 
and  of  individuals  are  insufficient  mo- 
tives to  influence  man.  The  ministers 
of  religion  subject  morality  to  human 
passions  by  making  it  flow  from  God. 
They  found  morality  upon  nothing  by 
founding  it  upon  a  chimera. 

The  ideas  entertained  of  God,  owing 
to  the  different  views  which  are  taken 
of  him,  vary  with  the  fancy  of  every 
man,  from  age  to  age,  from  one  country 
to  another. 

(Compare  the  morality  of  religion 
with  that  of  nature,  and  they  will  be 
found  essentially  different.  Nature  in- 
vites men  to  love  one  another,  to  pre- 
serve their  existence,  and  to  augment 
their  happiness.  Religion  commands 
him  to  love  a  terrible  God,  to  hate  him- 
self, and  sacrifice  his  soul's  most  pre- 
cious joys  to  his  frightful  idol.  Nature 
bids  man  consult  his  reason ;  religion 
tells  him  that  reason  is  a  fallible  guide. 
Nature  bids  him  search  for  truth ;  reli- 
gion prohibits  all  investigation.  Nature 
bids  man  be  sociable,  and  love  his 
neighbours;  religion  commands  him 
to  shun  society,  and  sequester  himself 
from  the  world.  Nature  enjoins  ten- 
derness and  affection  to  the  husband  ; 
religion  considers  matrimony  as  a  state 
of  impurity  and  corruption.  Nature 
bids  the  wicked  man  resist  his  shame- 
ful propensities,  as  destructive  to  his 
happiness ;  religion,  while  she  forbids 
crime,  promises  pardon  to  the  criminal, 
by  humbling  himself  before  its  minis- 
ters, by  sacrifices,  offerings,  ceremonies, 
find  prayers. 

The  human  mind,  perverted  by  reli- 
gion, has  hardly  advanced  a  single  step 
in  improvement.  Logic  has  been  uni- 
formly employed  to  prove  the  most  pal- 
pable absurdities.  Theology  has  in- 
spired kings  with  false  ideas  of  their 
rights,  by  telling  them  that  they  hold 
ttheir  power  from  God.  The  laws  be- 
jcame  subject  to  the  caprices  of  religion. 
Physics,  anatomy,  and  natural  history 


c 
(l 

V 

V 


were  only  permitted  to  see  with  the 
eyes  of  superstition.  The  most  clear 
facts  were  refuted,  when  inconsistent 
with  religious  hypothesis. 

Is  a  question  in  natural  philosophy 
solved  by  saying,  that  phenomena,  such 
as  volcanoes  or  deluges,  are  proofs  of 
Divine  wrath?  Instead  of  ascribing 
wars  and  famines  to  the  anger  of  God, 
would  it  not  have  been  more  useful  to 
show  men  that  they  proceeded  from 
their  own  folly,  and  from  the  tyranny 
of  their  princes?  Men  would  then 
have  sought  a  remedy  to  their  evils 
in  a  better  government.  Experience 
would  have  convinced  man  of  the  in-l 
efficacy  of  fasts,  prayers,  sacrifices,  and' 
processions,  which  never  produced  any 
good. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Man,  from,  the  ideas  which  are  given  of  the 
Deity,  can  conclude  nothing — Their  Ab- 
surdity and  Uselessness. 

SUPPOSING  the  existence  of  an  intel- 
ligence, like  that  held  out  by  theology, 
it  must  be  owned  that  no  man  has 
hitherto  corresponded  to  the  wishes  of 
providence.  God  wishes  himself  to  be 
known  by  men,  and  even  the  theolo- 
gians can  form  no  idea  of  him.  Ad- 
mitting that  they  did  so,  that  his  being 
and  attributes  are  evident  to  them,  do 
the  rest  of  mankind  enjoy  the  same 
advantages  ? 

Few  men  are  capable  of  profound 
and  constant  meditation.  The  com- 
mon people  of  t>oth  sexes,  condemned 
to  toil  for  subsistence,  never  reflect. 
People  of  fashion,  all  females,  and 
young  people  of  both  sexes,  only  occu- 
pied about  their  passions  and  their 
pleasures,  think  as  little  as  the  vulgar. 
There  are  not,  perhaps,  ten  men  of  a 
million  of  people,  who  have  seriously 
asked  themselves  what  they  understand 
by  God  ;  and  even  fewer  can  be  found 
who  have  made  a  problem  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Divinity :  yet  conviction  sup- 
poses evidence,  which  can  alone  pro- 
duce certainty.  Who  are  the  men  that 
are  convinced  of  God's  existence  ?  En- 
tire nations  worship  God  upon  the  au- 1 
thority  of  their  fathers  and  their  priests. ' 
Confidence,  authority,  and  habit,  stand 
in  the  stead  of  conviction  and  proof.t 
All  rests  upon  authority ;  reason  and! 


APPENDIX. 


359 


I  investigation  are  universally  prohib- 
Vited. 

Is  the  conviction  of  the  existence  of 
a  God,  so  important  to  all  men,  reserved 
only  to  priests  and  the  inspired  ?  Do 
we  find  the  same  unanimity  among 
them  as  with  those  occupied  with  study- 
ing the  knowledge  of  useful  arts  1  If 
God  wishes  to  be  known  to  all  men, 
why  does  he  not  show  himself  to  the 
whole  world,  in  a  less  equivocal  and 
more  convincing  manner  than  he  has 
hitherto  done  in  those  relations  which 
seem  to  charge  him  with  partiality? 
Are  fables  and  metamorphoses  the  only 
means  which  he  can  make  use  ofT 
Why  have  not  his  name,  attributes, 
and  will,  been  written  in  characters 
legible  by  all  men1? 

By  ascribing  to  him  contradictor}' 
qualities,  theology  has  put  its  God  in  a 
situation  where  he  cannot  act.  Admit- 
ting that  he  existed  with  such  extraor- 
,  dinary  and  contradictory  qualities,  we 
can  neither  reconcile  to  common  sense 
nor  to  reason  the  conduct  and  worship 
prescribed  towards  him. 

If  infinitely  good,  why  fear  him?  if 
infinitely  wise,  why  interest  ourselves 
about  our  fate  ?  if  omniscient,  why  tell 
him  of  our  wants,  or  fatigue  him  with 
our  prayers  ?  if  every  where,  why  erect 
to  him  temples  ?  if  master  of  all,  why 
make  him  sacrifices  and  offerings?  if 
just,  whence  has  arisen  the  belief  that 
he  will  punish  man,  whom  he  has  cre- 
ated weak  and  feeble  ?  if  reasonable, 
why  be  angry  with  a  blind  creature 
like  man  ?  if  immutable,  why  do  we 
pretend  to  change  his  decrees  ?  and  if 
inconceivable,  why  presume  to  form 
any  idea  of  him? 

But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  he  be  iras- 
cible, vindictive,  and  wicked,  we  are 
not  bound  to  offer  up  to  him  our  prayers. 
If  a  tyrant,  how  can  we  love  him? 
How  can  a  master  be  loved  by  his 
slaves,  whom  he  has  permitted  to  offend 
him  that  he  might  have  the  pleasure  oi 
punishing  them  ?  If  all-powerful,  how 
can  man  fly  from  his  wrath?  If  un- 
changeable, how  can  man  escape  his 
fate? 

Thus,  in  whatever  point  of  view  we 
consider  God,  we  can  neither  render 
him  prayers  nor  worship. 

Even  admitting  the  existence  of  a 
Deity,  full  of  equity,  reason,  and  be- 
nevolence, what  would  a  virtuous  athe- 


ist have  to  fear,  who  should  unexpect- 
edly find  himself  in  the  presence  of  a 
being  whom,  during  life,  he  had  mis- 
conceived and  neglected? 

"  O,  God  !"  he  might  say,  "  incon- 
ceivable being,  whom  I  could  not  dis- 
cover, pardon,  that  the  limited  under- 
standing thou  hast  given  me  has  been 
inadequate  to  thy  discovery !  How 
could  I  discover  thy  spiritual  essence 
by  the  aid  of  sense  alone  ?  I  could  not 
submit  my  mind  to  the  yoke  of  men, 
who,  confessedly  not  more  enlightened 
than  I,  agreed  only  among  themselves 
in  bidding  me  renounce  the  reason 
which  thou  hast  given !  But,  O  God  ! 
if  thou  lovest  thy  creatures,  I  have  also 
loved  them !  It  virtue  pleaseth  thee, 
my  heart  ever  honoured  it.  I  have  con- 
soled the  afflicted ;  never  did  I  devour 
the  substance  of  the  poor.  I  have  ever 
been  just,  bountiful,  and  compassion- 
ate." 

In  spite  of  reason,  men  are  often,  by 
disease,  brought  back  to  the  prejudices 
of  infancy.  This  is  most  frequently 
the  case  with  sick  people:  upon  the 
approach  of  death,  they  tremble,  be- 
cause the  machine  is  enfeebled ;  the 
brain  being  unable  to  perform  its  func- 
tions, they  of  course  fall  into  deliriums. 
Our  systems  experience  the  changes  of 
our  body. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Apology  for  the  Sentiments  contained  in  this 
Work. 

MEN  tremble  at  the  very  name  of  an 
atheist.  But  who  is  an  atheist  ?  The 
man  who  brings  mankind  back  to  rea- 
son and  experience,  by  destroying  pre- 
judices inimical  to  their  happiness; 
who  has  no  need  of  resorting  to  super- 
natural powers  in  explaining  the  phe- 
nomena of  nature. 

It  is  madness,  say  theologians,  to 
suppose  incomprehensible  motions  in 
nature.  Is  it  madness  to  prefer  the 
known  to  the  unknown? — to  consult 
experience  and  the  evidence  of  our 
senses? — to  address  ourselves  to  rea- 
son, and  prefer  her  oracles  to  the  deci- 
sion of  sophists,  who  even  confess 
themselves  ignorant  of  the  God  they 
announce  ? 

When  we  see  priests  so  angry  with 
atheistical  opinions,  should  we  not  sus- 


360 


APPENDIX. 


pect  the  justice  of  their  cause  ?  Spirit- 
ual tyrants  !  'tis  ye  who  have  defamed 
the  Divinity,  by  besmearing  him  with 
the  blood  of  the  Avretched !  You  are 
the  truly  impious.  Impiety  consists  in 
insulting  the  God  in  whom  it  believes. 
He  who  does  not  believe  in  a  God  can- 
not injure  him,  and  cannot  of  course  be 
impious. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  piety  consists 
in  serving  our  country,  in  being  useful 
to  our  fellow-creatures,  and  in  observ- 
ing the  laws  of  nature,  an  atheist  is 
pious,  honest,  and  virtuous,  when  his 
conduct  is  regulated  by  the  laws  which 
reason  and  virtue  prescribe  to  him. 

Men,  we  are  told,  who  have  reason 
to  expect  future  happiness,  never  fall 
into  atheism.  The  interest  of  the  pas- 
sions and  the  fear  of  punishment  alone 
make  atheists.  But  men  who  endeav- 
our to  enlighten  that  reason  which  im- 
prints every  idea  of  virtue,  are  not  cal- 
culated to  reject  the  existence  of  a 
future  state,  from  an  apprehension  of 
its  chastisements. 

It  is  true,  the  number  of  atheists  is 
inconsiderable,  because  enthusiasm  has 
dazzled  the  human  mind,  and  the  pro- 
gress of  errour  has  been  so  very  great, 
that  few  men  have  courage  to  search 
f^f  tfMth.4,Tf  by  atheists  are  meant 
ffhose  who,  guided  by  experience  and 
the  evidence  of  their  senses,  see  nothing 
1^1  nature  but  what  really  exists ;  if  by 
atheists  are  meant  natural  philosophers, 
who  think  every  thing  may  be  account- 
ed for  by  the  laws  of  motion,  without 
having  recourse  to  a  chimerical  power ; 
if  by  atheists  are  meant  those  who  know 
not  what  a  spirit  is,  and  who  reject  a 
phantom  whose  opposite  qualities  only 
disturb  mankind ;  doubtless,  there  are 
many  atheists :  and  their  number  would 
be  greater,  were  the  knowledge  of 
physics  and  sound  reason  more  gener- 
ally disseminated. 

s  An  atheist  does  not  believe  in  the 
(existence  of  a  God.     No  man  can  be 
j  certain  of  the  existence  of  an  incon- 
I  ceivable  being,  in  whom  inconsistent 
qualities  are  said  to  be  united.    In  this 
sense,  many  theologians  would  be  athe- 
ists, as  well  as  those  credulous  beings 
who  prostrate  themselves  before  a  be- 
ing of  whom  they  have  no  other  idea 
than  that  given  them  by  men  avowedly 
comprehending  nothing  of  him  them- 
selves. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


Is  Atheism  Compatible  with  Smind  Morality  ? 

THOUGH  the  atheist  denies  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God,  he  neither  denies  his 
own  existence  nor  that  of  other  men  j 
he  cannot  deny  th£  existence  of  rela- 
tions which  subsist  between  men,  nor 
the  duties  which  necessarily  result  from 
those  relations.  He  cannot  doubt  the 
existence  of  morality,  or  the  science  of 
the  relations  which  subsist  between 
men  living  in  society.  Though  he 
may  sometimes  seem  to  forget  the 
moral  principles,  it  does  not  follow 
that  they  do  not  exist.  He  may  act 
inconsistently  with  his  principles,  but 
a  philosophical  infidel  is  not  so  much, 
an  object  of  dread  as  an  enthusiastic 
priest.  Though  the  atheist  disbelieves 
in  the  existence  of  a  God,  can  it  be 
thought  that  he  will  indulge  to  excesses 
dangerous  to  himself  and  subject  to 
punishments  1  • 

Whether  would  men  be  happier  un-y 
der  an  atheistical  prince,  or  a  believing 
tyrant,  continually  bestowing  presents 
upon  priests  ?  Would  we  not  have  to 
fear  religious  quarrels  from  the  latter  ? 
Would  not  the  name  of  God,  of  which 
the  monarch  avails  himself,  sometimes 
serve  as  an  excuse  for  the  persecutions 
of  the  tyrant?  Would  he  not  at  least 
hope  to  find  in  religion  a  pardon  for  his 
crimes  ? 

Much  inconveniency  may  arise  from 
making  morality  depend  upon  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God.  When  corrupt  minds 
discover  the  falsehood  of  those  suppo- 
sitions, they  will  think  virtue  itself, 
like  the  Deity,  a  mere  chimera,  and  see 
no  reason  to  practise  it  in  life.  It  is, 
however,  as  beings  living  in  society, 
that  we  are  bound  by  morality.  Our 
duties  must  always  be  the  same,  wheth- 
er a  God  exist  or  not. 

If  some  atheists  deny  the  existence, 
of  good  and  of  evil,  it  only  proves  their/ 
own  ignorance.  A  natural  sentiment 
causes  man  to  love  pleasure  and  hate 
pain.  Ask  the  man  who  denies  the 
existence  of  virtue  and  vice,  would  he 
be  indifferent  at  being  robbed,  calum- 
niated, betrayed,  and  insulted?  His 
answer  will  prove  that  he  makes  a  dis- 
tinction between  men's  actions:  that 
the  distinctions  of  good  and  evil  depend 
neither  upon  human  conventions  nor 
the  idea  of  a  Deity ;  neither  do  they 


APPENDIX. 


361 


a 
\£o 


depend  upon  the  rewards  or  punish- 
ments of  a  future  state  of  existence. 

The  atheist,  believing  only  in  the 
present  life,  at  least  wishes  to  live 
happy.  Atheisnij  says  Bacon,  renders 
man  prudent,  as  it  limits  his  views  to 
this  life.  Men  accustomed  to  study 
and  meditation  never  are  bad  citizens. 
^"Some  men,  undeceived  themselves 
in  religious  matters,  pretend  that  reli- 
gion is  useful  to  the  people,  since,  with- 
out it,  they  could  not  be  governed.  But 
has  religion  had  a  useful  influence  upon 
popular  manners  ?  It  enslaves,  without 
making  obedient  ;  it  makes  idiots,  whose 
sole  virtue  consists  in  a  blind  submis- 
sion to  paltry  and  silly  ceremonies,  to 
which  more  consequence  is  attached 
than  to  real  virtue  or  pure  morality. 
Children  are  only  frightened  for  a  mo- 
ment by  imaginary  terrours.  It  is  only 
by  shov.'ing  men  the  truth  that  they  can 
appreciate  its  value,  and  find  motives 
or  cultivating  it. 

It  is  chiefly  among  nations  where 
superstition,  aided  by  authority,  makes 
its  heavy  yoke  be  felt,  and  imprudently 
abuses  its  power,  that  the  number  of 
atheists  is  considerable.  Oppression 
infuses  energy  into  the  mind,  and  occa- 
sions a  strict  investigation  into  the 
causes  of  its  evils.  Calamity  is  a 
powerful  goad,  stimulating  the  mind 
to  the  side  of  truth. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Motives  which,  lead  to  Atheism — Can  this  be 
Dangerous  1 

WHAT  interest,  we  are  asked,  can 
men  have  to  deny  the  existence  of 
God  1  But  are  the  tyrannies  exercised 
in  his  name,  and  the  slavery  in  which 
men  groan  under  priests,  sufficient  mo- 
tives for  determining  us  to  examine 
into  the  pretensions  of  a  class  that  oc- 
casions so  much  mischief  in  the  world  ? 
Can  there  be  a  stronger  motive  than 
the  incessant  dread  excited  by  the  belief 
in  a  being  who  is  angry  with  our  most 
secret  thoughts,  whom  we  may  unknow- 
ingly offend,  who  is  never  pleased  with 
us,  who  gives  man  evil  inclinations  that 
he  may  punish  him  for  them,  who  eter- 
nally punishes  the  crime  of  a  moment  ? 

The  deist  will  tell  us  that  we  only 
paint  superstition ;  but  such  a  supposi- 

No.  XII.— 46 


tion  will  never  prove  the  existence  of 
a  Deity.  If  the  God  of  superstition  be 
a  disgusting  being,  that  of  deism  must 
always  be  inconsistent  and  impossible. 

The  depraved  devotee  finds  in  reli- 
gion a  thousand  pretexts  for  being 
wicked.  The  atheist  has  no  cloak  of 
zeal  to  cover  his  vengeance  and  fury. 

No  sensible  atheist  thinks  that  the 
cruel  actions  caused  by  religion  are 
capable  of  being  justified.  If  the  athe- 
ist be  a  bad  man,  he  knows  when  he  is 
committing  wrong.  Neither  God  nor 
his  priests  can  then  persuade  him  that 
he  has  been  acting  properly. 

The  indecent  and  criminal  conduct 
of  his  ministers,  say  some  men,  proves 
nothing  against  religion.  May  not  the 
same  thing  be  said  of  an  atheist  of  good 
principles  and  a  bad  practice?  Athe- 
ism, it  is  said,  destroys  the  force  of 
oaths ;  but  perjury  is  common  enough 
with  those  nations  who  boast  the  most 
of  their  piety.  Are  the  most  holy  kings 
faithful  to  their  oaths  ?  Does  not  reli- 
gion itself  sometimes  grant  a  dispen- 
sation from  them,  especially  when  the 
perjury  is  beneficial  to  the  holy  cause  ? 
Do  criminals  refrain  from  swearing, 
when  necessary  to  their  justification  ? 
Oaths  are  a  foolish  formality,  which 
neither  impose  upon  villains  nor  add 
any  thing  to  the  engagements  of  good 
men. 

It  has  been  asked,  whether  a  people 
ever  existed  that  had  not  some  idea  of 
a  Deity  ;  and  could  a  nation  of  atheists 
exist  1 

A  timid  and  ignorant  animal,  like 
man,  necessarily  becomes  superstitious 
under  calamity.  He  either  creates  a 
God  himself  or  takes  that  which  is 
offered  him  by  another.  But  the  savage 
does  not  draw  the  same  conclusion 
from  the  existence  of  his  Gods  as  the 
polished  citizen.  A  nation  of  savages 
content  themselves  with  a  rude  wor- 
ship, and  never  reason  about  the  Divin- 
ity. It  is  only  in  civilized  states  that 
men  subtilize  those  ideas.  .  - 

A  numerous  society,  without,  either! 
religion,  morality,  government,  laws,/ 
or  principles,  doubtless  cannot  exist,! 
since  it  would  only  be  an  assemblage' 
of  men  mutually  disposed  to  injure  one 
another.     But,  in  spite  of  all  religions 
in  the  world,  are  not  all  human  socie- 
ties nearly  in  that  state  ?     A  society  of 
atheists,  governed  by  good  laws,  whom 


362 


APPENDIX. 


rewards  excite  to  virtue,  and  punish- 
ments deter  from  crime,  would  be  infi- 
/nitely  more  virtuous  than  those  reli- 
/gious  societies  in  which  every  thing 
I  tends  to  disturb  the  mind  and  to  deprave 
\£he  heart. 

We  cannot  expect  to  take  away  from 
a  whole  nation  its  religious  ideas,  be- 
cause they  have  been  inculcated  from 
the  tenderest  infancy.  But  the  vulgar, 
in  the  long  run,  may  reap  advantages 
Tom  labours,  of  which  they  at  present 
lave  no  idea.  Atheism,  having  truth 
jn  its  side,  will  gradually  insinuate 
tself  into  the  mind,  and  become  famil- 
iar to  man. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Abridgement  of  the  System  of  Nature. 

O  YE,  says  Nature,  who,  according 
to  the  impulse  which  I  have  given  you, 
tend  every  instant  towards  happiness, 
do  not  resist  my  sovereign  law !  lahour 
at  your  felicity ;  enjoy  without  fear ; 
be  happy. 

Return,  O  devotee,  to  Nature  !  She 
will  banish  from  thy  heart  the  terrours 
which  are  overwhelming  thee.  Cease 
to  contemplate  futurity.  Live  for  thy- 
self and  thy  fellow-creatures.  I  ap- 
prove of  thy  pleasures,  while  they 
neither  injure  thee  nor  others,  whom 
I  have  rendered  necessary  to  thy  hap- 
piness. 

Let  humanity  interest  thee  in  the  fate 
of  thy  fellow-creature.  Consider  that, 
like  Aim,  thou  mayest  one  day  he  mis- 
erable. Dry  up  the  tears  of  distressed 
virtue  and  injured  innocence.  Let  the 
mild  fervour  of  friendship,  and  the  es- 
teem of  a  loved  companion,  make  thee 
forget  the  pains  of  life. 

Be  just,  since  equity  supports  the 
human  race.  Be  good,  as  bounty  at- 
taches every  heart.  Be  indulgent,  since 
thou  livest  among  beings  weak  like 
thyself.  Be  modest,  as  pride  hurts  the 
self-love  of  every  human  being.  Par- 


don injuries,  as  vengeance  eternizes 
hatred.  Do  good  to  him  who  injures 
thee,  that  thou  mayest  show  thyself 
greater  than  he,  and  also  gain  his  friend- 
ship. Be  moderate,  temperate,  and 
chaste,  since  voluptuousness,  intem- 
perance, and  excess,  destroy  thy  being, 
and  render  thee  contemptible. 

It  is  I  who  punish  the  crimes  of  this 
world.  The  wicked  man  may  escape 
human  laws,  but  mine  he  can  never  fly 
from.  Abandon  thyself  to  intemper- 
ance, and  man  will  not  punish  thee, 
but  I  will  punish  thee,  by  shortening 
thy  existence.  If  addicted  to  vice, 
thou  wilt  perish  under  thy  fatal  habits. 
Princes,  whose  power  surpasseth  hu- 
man laws,  tremble  under  mine.  I  pun- 
ish them  by  infusing  suspicion  and 
terrour  into  their  minds.  Look  into 
the  hearts  of  those  criminals,  whose 
smiling  countenances  conceal  an  an- 
guished soul.  See  the  covetous  miser, 
haggard  and  emaciated,  groaning  under 
wealth,  acquired  by  the  sacrifice  of 
himself.  View  the  gay  voluptuary, 
secretly  writhing  under  a  broken  con- 
stitution; see  the  mutual  hatred  and 
contempt  which  subsist  between  the 
adulterous  pair !  The  liar,  deprived 
of  all  confidence ;  the  icy  heart  of  in- 
gratitude, which  no  act  of  kindness 
can  dissolve ;  the  iron  soul  of  the  mon- 
ster whom  the  sight  of  misfortune  could 
never  soften  ;  the  vindictive  being, 
nourishing  in  his  bosom  the  gnawing 
vipers  which  are  consuming  him ! 
Envy,  if  thou  darest,  the  sleep  of  the 
murderer,  the  iniquitous  judge,  or  the 
oppressor,  whose  couches  are  surround- 
ed by  the  torches  of  the  furies !  But 
no !  humanity  obliges  thee  to  partake 
of  their  merited  torments.  Comparing 
thyself  with  them,  and  finding  thy  bo- 
som the  constant  abode  of  peace,  thou 
wilt  find  a  subject  of  self-congratula- 
tion. Finally,  behold  the  decree  of 
destiny  fulfilled  on  all !  She  wills  that 
virtue  shall  never  go  unrewarded,  but 
crime  be  ever  its  own  punishment. 


CONTENTS 


FIRST  VOLUME. 

tfviqfc  Page 

ADVERTISEMENT  to  the  Public,           ......  ft 

Terms  of  the  Free  Enquirers'  Family  Library,    ....  vii 

The  Author's  Preface,       .........  viii 

CHAPTER  I. 

Of  Nature,        -  -        -        -       '*  V  •'*•.     11 

CHAPTER  II. 

Of  Motion,  and  its  Origin,       ,.-»ij:i- ;;-;•-,      -  16 

CHAPTER  III. 

Of  Matter: — Of  its  various  Combinations:    of  its  diversified  Mo- 
tion; or,  of  the  Course  of  Nature,      ••ruwnA  H     -        -        -        24 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Of  the  Laws  of  Motion  common  to  all  Beings  of  Nature :  Of  At- 
traction and  Repulsion :  of  Inert  Force  :  of  Necessity,  -        27 

CHAPTER  V. 
Of  Order  and  Confusion  :  of  Intelligence  :  of  Chance,  •        •         33 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Of  Man :    of  his  Distinction  into   Moral    and  Physical :    of  his 

Origin,       -  >i|y     -     i'.^f]     •    .    •        "         "         "         ^9 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Of  the  Soul,  and  of  the  Spiritual  System,         *»  -  -        -        47 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Of  the  Intellectual  Faculties  ;  they  are  all  derived  from  the  Faculty 

of  Feeling,  '  -  " '" ;  ^^     -        -        -        -        -        -        53 


364  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Page 

Of  the  Diversity  of  the  Intellectual  Faculties  ;  they  depend  on  Phy- 
sical Causes,  as  do  their  Moral  Qualities.  The  Natural  Prin- 
ciples of  Society.  Of  Morals.  Of  Politics,  59 

CHAPTER  X. 
The  Soul  does  not  derive  its  Ideas  from  itself.     It  has  no  innate 

Ideas,        ...        •lirj-fr'l     -----        75 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Of  the  System  of  Man's  Free  Agency,        -        -        -        -        -        88 

CHAPTER  XII. 
An  Examination  of  the  Opinion  which  pretends  that  the  System  of 

Fatalism  is  Dangerous,        -         -         -         -         -         -         -103 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Of  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul :    of  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future  State : 

of  the  Fear  of  Death,       ^ -i1'"'  -        -        -         -       116 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Education,  Morals,  and  the  Laws,  suffice  to  restrain  Man.     Of  the 

Desire  of  Immortality.     Of  Suicide  -        -        -         -       130 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Of  Man's  true  Interest,  or  of  the  Ideas  he  forms  to  himself  of 

Happiness. — Man  cannot  be  Happy  without  Virtue.         -        -       139 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
The  Errours  of  Man,  upon  what  constitutes  Happiness,  the  true 

Source  of  his  Evil.   Remedies  that  may  be  applied,         -         -       149 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Those  Ideas  which  are  true,  or  founded  upon  Nature,  are  the  only 
Remedies  for  the  Evils  of  Man. — Recapitulation. — Conclu- 
sion of  the  First  Part,  -  -  (*; -..iV;  ;•;.•).,•';••  v;  '  "  157 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
The  Origin  of  Man's  ideas  upon  the  Divinity,      -        -  -       163 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Of  Mythology  and  Theology,     -     3.'$e-i hlte      -        -        *        -       174 


365 


CONTENTS 


SECOND  VOLUME. 

Page 

CHAPTER  I. 
Of  the  confused  and  contradictory  Ideas  of  Theology,  -        -       191 

CHAPTER  II. 
Examination  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Divinity,  as  given  by  Clarke,      -      205 

CHAPTER  III. 

Examination  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  God  given  by  Des- 
cartes, Malebranche,  Newton,  &c.  .....  225 

CHAPTER  IV. 

»  •          1»  4*    -•— —    «••  -  *»  ^J 

Of  Pantheism,  or  of  the  Natural  Ideas  of  Divinity,       ...      236 

CHAPTER  V. 
Of  Theism  or  Deism :   of  the  System  of  Optimism  ;    and  of  Final 

Causes,     ....     -Ti[/, 246 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Examination  of  the  Advantages  which  result  to  men  from  their  No- 
tions on  the  Divinity,  or  of  their  Influence  upon  Morals,  upon 
Politics,  upon  the  Sciences,  upon  the  Happiness  of  Nations 
and  Individuals,  .....  ^.'  -  .  263 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Theological  Notions  cannot  be  the  Basis  of  Morality.  Comparison 
between  Theological  Morality  and  Natural  Morality.  Theolo- 
gy prejudicial  to  the  Progress  of  the  Human  Mind,  -  -  274 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Men  can  form  no  Conclusion  from  the  Ideas  which  are  given  them 


366  CONTENTS. 

PfUTG 

of  the  Divinity :  of  the  want  of  Just  Interference  in,  and  of 

the  Inutility  of  their  Conduct  on  his  Account,         ...      286 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Defence  of  the  Sentiments  contained  in  this  Work.     Of  Impiety. 

Do  there  exist  Atheists  ? --      299 

CHAPTER  X. 
Is  Atheism  compatible  with  Morality  ?  ^*£  V    ...      306 

CHAPTER  XL 

Of  the  Motives  which  lead  to  Atheism.     Can  this  System  be  dan- 
gerous ?     Can  it  be  Embraced  by  the  Uninformed  ?  314 

CHAPTER  XII. 

'    ».y  .*$•'   i      ' 

A  Summary  of  the  Code  of  Nature,  -        -        •        •        -      331 

^ . '.. .  -    ?    vr-j-JTj   I.-,-.          .    »*  •  IMP. 


APPENDIX. 


Introduction,      .    -  -  -     339 

CHAPTER  I 
On  Nature,     ...  .....        339 

CHAPTER  II. 

Of  Motion  and  its  Origin,  -  *"/  .?.*'"         "       341 

CHAPTER  III. 
Of  Matter  and  its  Motion  1  -        -        -        -      341 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Laws  of  Motion  to  all  Beings.    Attraction  and  Repulsion.    Neces- 

sity, :£      ."      -  -        /     •'  v,'"^      ,-'  I  341 

!./     <v:f;l<j  xtOSil-'U-J/jt*",?'-* 

CHAPTER  V. 
Of  Order  and  Disorder.     Intelligence  and  Chance,       *(Xj«  •*»jffij>T'!     342 

CHAPTER  VI 
Of  Man  ;  his  Physical  and  Moral  Distinctions.     His  Origin,         -       343 

CHAPTER  VII 
Of  the  Soul  and  its  Spirituality,          •-  343 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Of  the  Intellectual  Faculties.     All  derived  from  Sensation,          ^     343 


CONTENTS.  367 

Page 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Diversity  of  Intellectual  Faculties.    They  depend,  like  the  Moral 

Qualities,  on  Physical  Causes.    Natural  Principles  of  Society,     345 

CHAPTER  X. 
The  Mind  draws  no  Ideas  from  Itself.     We  have  no  Innate  Ideas,       345 

CHAPTER  XL 
Of  the  System  of  Man's  Liberty,        ---...       345 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Examination  of  the  Opinions  which  maintain  the  System  of  Neces- 
sity to  be  Dangerous,  -         -         -     }.  V ";'     .       -J  .  345 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Of  the  Soul's  Immortality.     The  Dogma  of  a  Future  State.     Fear 

of  Death,  -         -     -  .'     347 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Of  Education.      Morality  and   Laws  sufficient  to  restrain  Man. 

Desire  of  Immortality.     Suicide.          .....       343 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Of  Man's  Interest,  or  the  Ideas  he  forms  of  Happiness.     Without 

Virtue  he  cannot  be  happy,  -         -       349 

^1  CHAPTER  XVI. 

w    * 
The  erroneous  Opinions  entertained  by  Man  of  Happiness,  are  the 

True  Causes  of  his  Misery,       -  -  .^     -  349 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Origin  of  our  Ideas  concerning  the  Divinity,         ....       350 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Of  Mythology  and  Theology,     *  *  ,  - '.  •  -         -         -         -       351 

,       CHAPTER  XIX. 
Absurd  and  Extraordinary  Theological  Opinions,  •  351 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Examination  of  Dr.  Clarke's  Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  a  Deity,         353 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Examination  of  the  Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  a  Divinity,    -         -       354 


368  CONTENTS 

Page 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Of  Deism,  Optimism,  and  Final  Causes,      -         -        -         -        -       355 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Examination  of  the  Supposed  Advantages  which  result  to  Man  from 
the  Notions  of  a  Divinity,  or  their  Influence  upon  Morals,  Pol- 
itics, Science,  the  Welfare  of  Nations,  and  of  Individuals,  -  356 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Religious  Opinions  cannot  be  the  Foundation  of  Morality :  Paral- 
lel between  Religious  and  Natural  Morality :  Religion  impedes 
the  Progress  of  the  Mind,  ......  357 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Man,  from  the  Ideas  which  are  given  of  the  Deity,  can  conclude 

nothing :  Their  Absurdity  and  Uselessness,  ...       358 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Apology  for  the  Sentiments  contained  in  this  Work,     -        -        -      359 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
Is  Atheism  Compatible  with  Sound  Morality  I      -     '.-'*V     -        -       360 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
Motives  which  lead  to  Atheism :  Can  this  be  Dangerous,      -        -       361 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
Abridgment  of  the  System  of  Nature,      L-**»^ J    *%}     ...      631 


